Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Taako coughed three, maybe four times, hard enough that he had to take a few steps back and… that was it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up again to his audience with his famous self-consciousness melting smile ready to quickly not-quite apologize for the interruption and start offering up some of the best samples Glamour Springs would ever taste but the expression from his audience... All forty of them looked shocked, terrified maybe. Some were looking amongst themselves and whispering, one had let out a shocked little squeek. But the majority were staring wide-eyed at the station Taako had just stepped back from.

The elf raised an eyebrow, halfway through his attempt to get the show back on track but allowed his gaze to follow the audiences to the counter. Ok, a the bowl that had been right next to him a moment ago had spilled. That was a damn shame; Taako didn’t think he’d made that dynamic of a movement when he’d had his little cough attack, but there it was. Whomp whomp.

His focus traveled down farther wondering with annoyance how much of a mess there was - Sazed was not going to be stoked about cleaning this up - and...

Taako took another few steps back with a yelp before his back hit the wall of the set, his own name scrawled ironically behind him as felt himself helplessly slide onto the ground. Sazed was there a moment later, walking past him and - “SAZED WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING?” he burst, finally, waving frantically in front of him at his own body.

He laid, - or that thing that looked like him, what the fuck was even going on? - in a limp heap behind the counter and in front of the shelves of neatly stacked pots and pans. That him was wearing his hair pulled back into the same neat bun Taako remembered putting it up in just below his crisp white personalized hat with the same matching chef coat and Sazed blew right past to put a hand on that Taako’s still shoulder before looking around frantically and then out at the audience, saying something somehow reasonably calm to them.

Taako didn’t hear what he said. It felt like a drum was being played directly in his ears and his mouth felt dry and he couldn’t breath. He ran his fingers up into his hairline and curled up a little tighter and let out a sob.

**

The first day was weird, numbing, awful… but somehow familiar. After the initial shock wore off death was almost routine. For lack of anything better to do he stuck around Sazed and felt almost bad about the stress his boyfriend - or was it ex, now - was under. Sure, their relationship had been rocky since Taako refused to split his show. A breakup had felt on the horizon for quite a while, but accidentally poisoning yourself was an extra shitty way to end the relationship and Taako wasn’t entirely heartless about it.

It only took until the second day for Taako to be bored with death. Nobody spoke to him or heard him or paid him any attention, and that should have been a crime, even if they were ignoring a soundless incorporeal form. He couldn’t touch anything, not really. He was able to passively touch things, lean on a wall, sit on a table… but whenever he tried to move a spoon or open a cabinet or properly haunt Sazed he found his arm half way through whatever it was and frankly it had stopped being amusing almost immediately.

So instead he spent his time following around his boyfriend and adding commentary he knew would never be appreciated, providing answers to questions that Sazed had obviously meant to be private and hypothetical, making jokes who’s hilarity would go un-laughed at. Death fucking sucked and Taako felt very lied to by every popular ghost story. What good was any of this if he couldn’t freak out everyone who knew him in his life?

But that’s how he figured it out.

Following Sazed through rooms, half listening to what he said to himself when he was alone, pseudo watching what he did when nobody else was around. He was in the prep area of their cart, sitting on a low stool and rolling a small bottle under his thumb, uncharacteristically still. It was boring and Taako was was getting sick of even Sazed adding to death being so, so dull.

“What do you even have there, my dude? For your sake I hope it’s going to find you another chef to mooch on,” he smirked and leaned over Sazed’s shoulder. Going through a living thing was weird and he was going to aim to avoid doing that for a while.

As the bottle rolled back toward him, the label finally exposed Taako felt his stomach drop.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!”

Taako stormed after Sazed for hours, trying and failing repeatedly to throw cups, knock books off of the counter, hit him, ANYTHING.

“Is this because I didn’t want to share my fucking show with you you absolute shit bag? You weren’t that good at cooking! Maybe find your own fucking thing instead of KILLING ME FOR MINE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!” He took another swipe at whatever was on the nearest table and indiscriminately screamed with frustration and rage and betrayal when nothing happened.

Taako kept this up through Sazed making funeral arrangements and having a lonely meal and only felt a little accomplished when his ex, - definitely ex fucking boyfriend - seemed to be unable to sleep all night.

The morning of the third day Taako was sitting on the counter as Sazed packed up their entire set slowly, alone and making biting remarks whenever he walked by.

“Exactly what level of success do you think you’re going to reach without me, moron? I was your fucking ticket,” he spat, as Sazed dropped a small pile of papers next to where he couldn’t possibly know Taako was sitting and kept walking by.

Taako looked at the top one and for a moment his entire being froze. It was a picture of himself and Sazed about a year earlier, much happier. A talented fan in some no-name town had drawn them and the likeness was like looking into a mirror.

But Taako wasn’t seeing himself. That face was his sister. That was Lup… LUP!

Taako jumped up off of the counter, shifting through Sazed by accident as he walked by and feeling for just a moment like he’d been electrocuted.

But Lup! How had he forgotten Lup? When did she go missing? Where was she now? Was she still missing?! How long ago had that been!?

Taako paced, running his fingers through what hair wasn’t still pinned up. “Where is she? Where the fuck is she?!”

Hours later it finally occurred to him that if he’d forgotten Lup, his sister, his ONLY sister, what else had he forgotten? How had he forgotten all of it?

And so he sat down and did something he hadn’t in a very long time - he meditated.

Sleep was too nice to give up, so the benefits of meditating were frequently forsaken for multiple blankets and warm cuddles and just as many pillows as he could feasibly fit onto a bed. But this was so important and he couldn’t really sleep anymore anyway.

So he forced himself to put aside his rage and hurt. Forced himself to ignore his murderer, still walking back and forth feet from where Taako was sitting and forced himself to concentrate and just let himself zone out.

Taako mediated through Sazed packing up the rest of the Sizzle it Up set. He meditated as Sazed slept and as he took all of it on the road, periodically stopping to heckle his ex between marathon sessions of sitting still and closing his eyes.

Taako remembered Magnus and Merle. He remembered Barry and Davenport and Lucretia and the IPRE and the Starblaster and the Hunger and those hundred fucking years and dieing all those times. He remembered everything. It took days and days, but he remembered.

And yet there were no clues for where Lup had gone and while he was vaguely sure that Magnus’s stupid fish had something to do with his memory going kaput, he didn’t know why or how or who.

And so Taako found himself sitting at the front of the cart looking at Sazed for hopefully the last time ever. “I guess this is goodbye, douche face.”

Sazed didn’t reply. Of course he didn’t reply.

“Well. Fuck you very much,” and Taako hopped off, walking vaguely toward the town they were driving past. It would probably take a long time to find everyone. It would take a long time to find what had happened to Lup and figure out why his memories were gone for …. fuck it must have been at least seven years. He was going to be looking for even just his first clue for a while, but he seemed to be made of time at this point. He had an eternity and he was going to use it.

**

It took another three days.

Taako wandered through the nearest town looking for anything that may be useful. Public records, maps of cities that had been destroyed in the last ten years, people who could see ghosts…

He came up empty on every front and it would have been disheartening if it wasn’t literally his first stop of what he imagined would be just so, so many. Since he couldn’t keep a physical map he’d have to figure out a way to remember everywhere he went, every bit of information he obtained, well, when he managed to find any information that was. He had to force himself to not be overwhelmed in advance.

And that’s how Taako found himself in this small town’s tiny public library listening in on conversations and looking over stranger’s shoulders as they opened maps or read books that looked even remotely promising when someone finally spoke to him.

“What are you even doing here?”

He was starting to get a good ear for keywords that may interest him and normal pseudo snarky conversation starters weren’t it, so Taako ignored the comment and the polite throat clear that came after until -

“Taako.”

The elf froze for a sec and then looked back over his shoulder at someone. A man. A man who could see him, and spoke to him… this was -

“So? It’s been more than a week. This time at least. Were you planning to check in, or…?” This man seemed to take tall dark and handsome very seriously. He was all black hair and clothes and red accents and goddamn he must have been top three most attractive people Taako had ever seen. ‘Honestly,’ he thought with the start of a grin, ‘if anyone was going to be able to interact with my ghostly ass, I’m very OK with it being this guy.’

“Check in where, my man?” Taako crossed his arms and leaned on the desk nearest him. Someone was writing on it, but they didn’t know he was there and Taako couldn't bring himself to care about corporeal personal bubbles at the moment.

“The Astral Plane,” he waited a moment for Taako to respond and when it became apparent he wasn’t going to… “You’re dead.”

“True.”

“So you have to come to the Astral Plane now.”

“No thanks.”

This earned Taako a series of almost flustered blinks, which were adorable and made his smile widen even more. “Ex..excuse me?”

“No can do, dude. I’m sort of on a mission. Maybe you can check back innnnnnnnnn six months to ten years?”

“No?! You don’t get a say in - are games like this how you avoided going to the Astral Plane before?”

“The other couple of times I died, you mean?

“Nine. Nine times.”

“Yeah, that sounds right. No those were…. Well let’s just say those were suuuuper weird circumstances that I don’t have the time to explain, because as I said, mission. So maybe next time.”

The other man took an exaggerated breath and Taako couldn’t quite tell if it was the beginning of anger of more fluster. And honestly, either way he didn’t hate how this guy wore exasperation. “Taako,”

“Who are you, anyway?”

“You don’t know? I know who you are.”

“Of course you do, big guy, I’m famous.”

He smirked, “I am too, in a sense. I’m a bounty hunter for the Raven Queen.” He was met with a blank stare and sighed again in response. “Maybe, the grim reaper would be more -”

“OH SHIT!” the smile broke into a full fledged grin. “That’s so fucking metal I have literal death looking for me.” And then he laughed, almost doubled over.

“I mean… that’s not what I’d call myself,” his expression was mostly neutral, but his eyes were narrowed in mild annoyance.

“Ok then,” Taako rubbed the corner of his left eye with the heel of his hand. “What should I call you then?”

“Kravitz. I guess. If you’re going to call me anything. Look, I have other bounties to find so if we could get -”

“I already told you Krav,” his shoulders tensed slightly. They were decidedly not at the point of nicknames and this elf was making his job much harder than it needed to be. “I still have some shit to do, so seriously, just check back up on me later. I promise not to make any trouble or haunt any houses or poses any dolls or anything.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“Well I’m not going. So either you step off or you make me go or you help me out.”

Kravitz paused at this ultimatum. Taako was in no position to be making demands and yet…. Here he was. Refusing death and being jovial about it. “What… are you trying to do, exactly?”

Taako froze for a beat and then stood up straight, walking towards the reaper. “OK very short version I’m looking for my sister.”

“You said you weren’t going to haunt anyone,” his tone was dry but not entirely serious.

“No. Shut up. No, I need to find her. She disappeared like… I don’t know, seven or eight years ago and I don’t know if she’s alive or dead or what.”

“Oh,” Kravitz was confused. That request was so… easy. He pulled his book into existence and started thumbing through pages. “Name?”

“You don’t just know?” his eyebrow and smile were both raised, cocked just a little to one side.

“The living are a lot to keep track of and sometimes I have problem jobs that make everything even harder,” he grumbled, eyeing Taako. “Name?”

“Lup.”

He flipped a dark hand through aged pages, and then back a few, forward again before pausing. “Do you have different last names?”

“....No.”

“Does she have another name at all?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think she took Barry’s name ever but… shit man, I don’t know try Bluejeans?”

Now it was Kravitz’s turn to give a cockeyed grin. “Stop that. I know. I made fun of him all the time.”

“Still nothing.”

“So she’s alive then?”

Kravitz frowned. “That’s not really what this book is. Everyone is in here. You’re having me look up someone who doesn’t exist… At all.”

“Well what the fuck does that mean, my dude?”

“That…” Kravitz adjusted his stance somewhat uncomfortably. “That this person doesn’t exist. She isn’t real.”

“She’s real.”

“Taako.”

“My sister is fucking real.”

“Then why isn’t she in my book, Taako?”

“I don’t fucking know! It’s a mystery I’m trying to solve! So why don’t you leave me alone and let me get back the fuck to it, mmm?”

Kravitz frowned and closed his book. “I can’t just leave you here, but-” He looked over at Taako who was in turn looking away at something completely else, probably nothing specific.

Kravitz liked to gamble, he wasn’t terrible at it either, and it wasn’t hard to pick up on tells… to know when the person across from him was lying. And this wasn’t what lying looked like. “Look, do you have any proof that she’s real? I can help if there something - anything - to go on.” He knew this was a bad idea. He shouldn’t do this. This was the worst idea he’d had in at least ten years and it wasn’t going to reflect well on his job.

“No. Maybe. I mean, yes. Definitely yes. I’m just still looking for it.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Kravitz looked to the side sheepishly, “You tell me everything you can and then you stay put. You don’t leave this town until I come back, got it? And I’ll see what I can find. If it’s out there anywhere I’ll dig it up. And if I don’t find anything you come with me. Deal?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“And if you leave here and make me work to hunt you down again you’re getting thrown in the Stockade. Got it?

“Yeah, wait for more information or go to ghost jail, kapish.”

“Ok. Good, I guess. Tell me everything.”

Chapter Text

Taako decidedly did not tell Kravitz everything.

He didn’t need to know everything, absolutely fucking not thank you very much.

But he did have to tell him quite a bit. Once Taako started he found that “I’m about ninety seven percent sure she disappeared because she left to find the weapon of mass destruction she made,” needed the context of a Gauntlet that could level an entire city into black glass in moments, which needed the context of The Light of Creation and The Hunger, which in turn needed to context of his interplanar jet-setting, which dovetailed nicely into how one elf could die ten times and not have it stick the first nine.

Kravitz asked how long Taako had been looking for his sister and he replied that it had only been about a week with some poorly masked embarrassment and then tried to explain that his memories had been wiped years prior, he didn’t know by whom just yet “-but it probably has to do with Fisher - he’s like this big space jellyfish who eats information and-” Taako found himself suddenly adding at least fifteen minutes to this explanation with a story about the conservatory planet.

He listened to Taako talk for hours, bless his undead soul, only interrupting with relevant, meaningful questions. If he suspected that his companion was lying or crazy he had done a commendable job of hiding it.

“Is that everything?” Kravitz asked, when the ghost had finally finished talking.

Taako thought of the best day ever and Lup and Barry standing on a hill moments before becoming liches. He thought of the handful of times either of them died after that point, how things had ‘gotten a little spooky,’ like she’d said they would. “Yeah, man. That’s everything.”

He didn’t know a lot about grim reaping, but Taako was almost completely certain that somebody whose job description included being a bounty hunter for the natural laws of life and death didn’t want to hear that he was about to do a favor for an undead ghost monster.

“Well, all right then.” Kravitz stood from one of the big leather reading chairs they’d taken camp in. The library was long closed by this point, but when they’d chosen this spot to chat it was tucked in a corner of the building, far from any books people would want to sit and read. It had been a good choice in avoiding any unsuspecting living people inadvertently sitting on them. “I’ll see what I can find. And you-”

“Will sit tight in this dinky-ass one horse town. I got it, bud.” Taako gave the reaper a long questioning look, still curled up in his oversized chair, chin resting on his fist.

“What?”

“I just dropped a century of certified organically grown bonkers on you, and you’re taking it completely in stride.”

“Did you make it up?”

“No. Are you kidding? I’m not that creative.”

“Well then there you go. The whole thing does sound… far fetched,” he chose his words carefully. “But you’ve given me at least a few easy things to follow up on; I’ll know pretty quickly if you’re messing with me.”

Taako leaned back in the chair. “Hella, my man. So I’ll see you around, then?”

“Yes... I’ll see you again soon, Taako.”

His scythe materialized in his hand, feathered and so dark it seemed to absorb light, and Kravitz sliced a doorway out of the library. He looked back at the other man for a silent moment and then stepped through the rift, letting it close up behind him.

**

Taako expected to wait a few days. Maybe a week. He understood that Kravitz had a job and other ghosts to hunt down and that he'd given him a metric fuckton of information to digest and play detective with.

But it had been nearly two weeks with not a word and this town could not have been less exciting. Taako would have moved on days ago if he hadn't promised on threat of incarceration not to run off before Kravitz returned.

‘I should have gotten a time frame.’ Taako laid in the middle of somebody's front lawn, staring at the sky. He considered the possibility that Kravitz didn't intend at all to come back and tricked him into sitting in the most boring place imaginable forever. At what point would it be reasonable to just wander off without risking eternal ghost jail?

Taako groaned dramatically and rolled back and forth on the grass, his white jacket and hat never staining and his hair never shifting out of its tight professional bun. If he'd known he'd be wearing this forever he'd have dressed a little differently for that last show. He looked good, there was no question, but this wasn't his forever aesthetic of choice.

‘If he makes me wait another two weeks I'm going to find a way to poses a little kid and force that dumb handsome jerk to stop ignoring me,’ he told himself, bitterly and face down in a patch of weeds that children liked to call flowers.

Kravitz didn't make him wait another two weeks, but he came close.

“Good afternoon, Taako,” Kravitz said pleasantly, stepping through a freshly torn rift.

Taako glared at him sideways for a moment before turning his attention back to a children's puppet show.

Kravitz looked around and made a concerned effort to not laugh at the scene, failing spectacularly. The elf was surrounded by little kids, as if he'd just sat right in any open spot he could find, watching a show. Even leaned over, cheek on his fist, elbow on his knee, he was noticeably taller than the largest child, and it seemed the only audience member paying even a little attention to the show. “What are you DOING?” Kravitz laughed.

“Watching the handsome knight rescue the beautiful princess from the scary beholder, what does it look like I'm doing?”

“I mean… yes…” he started. “But why?”

“Because it's been a month and I'm so bored I could die a second time, my man.” He stood and brushed off his clothing, not that he needed to. It always shifted right back into place, always a perfect reflection of how he looked when he died. “Now, if you don't have some good news for me I'm going to lose my goddamn mind and it's going to get all children of the corn up in here.”

“You can't do that,” Kravitz said dryly.

“You don't know what I learned in the last three and a half weeks.”

“No, but I know you can't do that all the same,” the reaper smiled, smugly. “As it happens though, I do happen to have some news for you.”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice how you left the word ‘good’ out of that sentence.” He crossed his arms and shifted his weight onto one hip.

“I guess that will depend on your definition of good and if this lead pans out at all,” Kravitz shrugged, refusing to let Taako catch him unprepared and take the upperhand in this conversation. It would be embarrassing to let it happen twice in two meetings. “Now, can we talk somewhere less…. this?” he waved an arm at the frankly ridiculous children’s show still in progess.

“I mean if you really want,” Taako made a show of rolling his eyes and Kravitz noticed that they were very nice eyes before silently chiding himself about professionalism. “But I was getting really invested in the story.”

“Name one character.”

He paused for a moment before shrugging and turning on his heel. “Yeah, let’s find somewhere less covered in kids,” he finally mumbled as if the small field he’d been sitting in had an infestation.

Taako lead the way silently to another part of the park. It was the middle of the day, but most people worked and most of the children and parents who would usually be the loudest patrons of the area were crowded in one small area near the stage. Kravitz wondered if they ever had local community theater events here. It seemed like a nice place to spend a few weeks despite the complaints.

A few minutes later they were sitting in the grass near the largest tree in the area. Kravitz took off his cloak and laid it on the ground and Taako wasn’t sure if this was a very endearing but laughably old fashioned attempt at being a gentleman, or if the reaper just didn’t want to risk dirtying his own impeccably put together suit.

“So what’s the word, Ghost Man? What did you find?”

Kravitz shifted his large bound book from their first meeting into his hands and opened it, removing a few loose sheets of paper and laying them between the two on the dark fabric of cloak. Taako didn’t bother trying to pick any of them up to take a better look. He didn’t bother trying to hold anything anymore.

“That thing you told me about cities being turned to glass, I thought it sounded familiar so I looked further into it and there were a bunch of times that it had happened over the course of a year, maybe a little more. We didn’t think too much of it at the time because of how much weird shit was going on - between natural disasters and one town turning into candy, it had been an extra busy couple of months for the Raven Queen.”

Taako cringed a little at the last example, but Kravitz didn’t seem to notice and continued his story, motioning at a map with little black circles drawn around cities and a list of locations and dates. “But you pointed out the glassings specifically so I kept my search near those… seeing if there were any deaths that flew under the radar so to speak and… there was one that looked promising, Taako.” The elf stiffened and Kravitz paused and then quickly started up again, speaking much more quickly, “And I realize that probably doesn’t sound like good news but-”

“How does a death fly under the radar?” Was it possible she could have taken her lich self and just run? Somehow avoided being found but also didn’t come back to the Starblaster?

“It’s…. A weird situation that almost never happens, honestly, but,” Kravitz stammered for just a moment, remembered that he needed to keep control over this meeting. “Most people die and come to the Astral Plane on their own. They don’t need to be lead or met half way, they just go naturally. Others ...don’t. They resist crossing over or miss it somehow. It’s usually that they’re scared or confused or don’t realize what’s happened for a little while. They need a gentle push in the right direction.”

“That’s where you come in.”

“Yes. but also this next part is where I come in, too - some just refuse to go. Either with necromancy or because they want to haunt someone.”

“If they’ve found a way to scare the living I’d love to hear more about it.”

Kravitz laughed, his stiffness visibly melting a little. “Yes well. Sometimes someone just disappears out of our ability to find them. Either they’re abnormally good at disguising themselves or they’re vanquished by someone who isn’t working for the Raven Queen or they go into hiding. It’s rare, but between normal people and the undead and problems at the Stockade sometimes we don’t always follow up on every random missing death.” He paused and looked at Taako who was unusually quiet, hands folded and listening intently. Waiting for the part where all of this information related directly to Lup.

“And so,” the reaper pushed through to the point, not nervous persay, but not excited. “The most recent glassing was the end of a battle and not too far from where one of these random missing deaths fell off of the map just about eight years ago. Which falls right into your timeline and…” He let himself trail off but Taako refused to let the ‘and’ go unfollowed up on.

“And…. what did you find?”

“N...nothing.” Kravitz stuttered, and then, “Oh! No, I haven’t gone yet. I thought you’d want to come with incase I did find anything. It’s your mystery,“ ...and your sister maybe, he didn’t add.

“Hell yeah I want to. Let’s go,” Taako was on his feet almost before Kravitz could register his enthusiasm.

“You’re sure?” Kravitz prodded gently. “It could mean that she’s… I mean for good…”

“I’m sure let’s get this show on the rooooooaaaaaaad,” he was ready to find her, and even if Lup had died, if she’d had to go into hiding as Lich there is no way she didn’t leave something behind for him to find, some clue where she’d gone. This was it, Taako was going to find her, finally.

“All Right,” Kravitz stood, wrapping his cloak back around his shoulders and pulling his scythe out to create his doorway. He motioned for Taako to go first, and he did.”

**

“So where the crap are we, anyway?”

“Wave Echo Cave. Near Phandalin.”

“Huh.”

“Have you ever been?” Kravitz’s attempt at light smalltalk was commendable but years out of practice.

“No. It was on my tour list though. I think I was supposed to be there sometime later this month? Or next month maybe? Something like that. Doesn’t really matter anymore.” He shrugged, but he was smiling and Kravitz couldn’t put even a single finger on Taako’s mood.

They wandered the cave for a short time in silence. Kravitz knew it had to have happened right around here and if there was anything left to prove that anyone had died in this cave one of them would find it, but he couldn’t track down the exact location clearly. It had just been too long ago.

Eventually Taako left his side and they looked around separately, Kravitz seemingly more nervous for what they may find than Taako, but the man could apparently hide his true feelings like an old pro so he didn’t think too much of it.

That, and a familiar feeling was pulling him farther down this path and taking up more and more of his focus. The air was thick and dark and damp and the cave was all rock formations and small pools of liquid and lazily growing fungus and…. A door. A giant vault door.

“Oh...kay.” He didn’t quite expect this and didn’t exactly want to go into someone’s private vault if he didn’t have to.

He turned his head and found that he wouldn’t have to.

“Taako! I found something, come here. Taako!!”

“I HEAR YOU BUBELAH! Where is ‘here’?”

He followed Kravitz’s voice to the vault door and made a large arm movement that he hoped adequately conveyed ‘OK keep your pants on my fella, I’m here now.’ Kravitz silently motioned one arm in response and …

Taako knew exactly what he was looking at. Who he was looking at. On some level he’d known what to expect, but the reality, the actuality of being in the same space as the physical proof was something else entirely.

He took a few heavy steps toward her and then a few more and before he could properly collect his feelings he felt himself become lightheaded and his chest tighten. He had sunk down onto his knees, two feet from her, maybe less, before he’d had a chance to realize that his legs had failed him.

It was Lup.

He remembered putting all of that ridiculous gold trim on their robes together. It wasn’t within the uniform standard, but honestly who cared?

He remember lending her those boots and never getting them back. She’d declared possession ten tenths of the law and proceeded to wear them everywhere - they were the most comfortable adventuring shoes on the ship, after all.

He remembered that gap in her front teeth, a perfect mirror to his. He’d been self-conscious about it when they were young, but she’d managed to make it look unique and radiant and they had the same face so it must look great on him too, right?

He remembered her umbrella. And that was the worst part.

He remembered when she’d made it, how much time and effort she’d poured into her weapon. How much she loved it in the few cycles between making it and coming to this plane. It was never out of her sight. She’d never have left it behind.

But there it was. Dusty after all these years, but still bright and vibrant. Still very much hers. Except it wasn’t. She’d left it. Which could only mean that wherever she was she couldn’t have taken it with her.

And Taako couldn’t imagine where that place could possibly be unless….

Unless she really was just gone. Really gone.

“W-Was there anything else?” his voice cracked just a little more than usual, but he managed to course correct the sentence quickly.

“Like...like what?” Kravitz took a single step forward and then stopped. Pain was radiating off of Taako, but he was trying his hardest to hide it and almost definitely wanted space. Still, it felt wrong not to at least try to comfort him.

“I don’t know. Anything out of the ordinary. Just… fucking anything.”

“No.” Kravitz frowned. Up until now this had been the most boring, normal, cave-like cave imaginable. “Unless you think there’s going to be anything in the vault…”

“Could you…?”

Kravitz didn’t make him finish the request. “Sure,” he said quietly, made a hole in the air and stepped into the next room and then back a few minutes later. “There’s a skeleton, dwarf I think, holding a gauntlet. Everything else looks normal.

Taako didn’t say anything in reply but kept staring at the propped up set of bones and robes that used to be his sister. So you managed to get it locked away, huh? Good job, Lulu.

“Taako, is there anything-”

“Can you tell me how she died?” he interrupted, his voice carefully flat.

Kravitz paused but then walked over, holding a hand out flat near the skeleton. Taako didn’t notice the reaper looking rather more skeletal himself.

“Poison, it feels like.” he said quietly after a few moments. “Probably something fairly fast acting.”

Taako let out a wet bark of a laugh. “You too, huh sis? Fuck, we never stopped being a match set.”

Kravitz frowned with concern but didn’t say anything until he followed Taako’s gaze to the umbrella. Colorful and beautiful and practically made of power. “Would you like to keep it?”

The elf’s expression hardened. “Yeah man, I’d fucking love to,” and then he put his hand out and through the umbrella, probably through part of the skeleton behind it as well. “Whoops. Look at that. Fuck me, right?”

Kravitz winced, he should have phrased it differently and he deserved every bit of bitterness and venom Taako’s voice had been laced with. “No… I meant… May I?” he motioned towards the umbrella himself.

“Sure. Whatever,” he was so quiet

The reaper waited a moment and then reached the rest of the way, picking the umbrella up around the middle and pulling it gently toward himself.

But not gently enough. The skeleton moved, almost leaned forward towards Taako for just a moment and then collapsed into dust, blowing slightly away from its corner of the cave under its own gust.

“Shit! Taako I’m so sorry I didn’t-”

“It’s fine,” he cut in. “Shitty has just been the theme of the last few months, so no biggie.”

The ghost didn’t sound terribly convincing and it did very little to ease Kravitz’s guilt but he didn’t know what else to do. Taako was still gazing at where the skeleton had been. Now all rags and fragments and dust. “Here, ” he finally said, holding out the umbrella.

Taako looked up at him and then at the umbrella and then back to the reaper. “I can’t touch shit, my dude.” But Kravitz continued holding it out, wordlessly refusing to take no for an answer. This was something more easily shown than explained. Taako sighed, deeply, his exhale strained and jagged, and reached out a hand to push through the umbrella.

His fingers stopped when they hit fabric and he froze for just a moment. He wrapped his hand around it experimentally, feeling its solidity and softness under his palm and then snatched it completely out of Kravtiz’s hand.

Taako was hugging it to his chest before he realized, resting his forehead on the hooked handle. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Kravitz pretended not to hear.

“I’m going to give you some time, Taako,” he said quietly.

“No,” Taako was starting to stand, his back to Kravitz in an attempt to be nonchalant about wiping at his face with the back of his hand. “I’m ready to go. We had a deal and this is was a dead end and I’m ready to just be done.”

It was frankly the best thing a ghost could say, I’m ready. But Kravitz hated it. This wasn’t acceptance and peace, this was grief and sorrow and giving up.

“Sure,” he nodded, opening his last rift of the day.

Taako moved to step through and then paused, forcing something lighthearted out of his mouth. “You’re not bringing me back to that boring ass town, right?”

“Nope.”

“And we’re not going to ghost jail?”

“You’re not going to the Stockade, I promise. ”

Taako shrugged and stepped out of the cave, still clutching the umbrella.

**

“Where is this?” he asked as soon as they were both through, looking around at a beautiful foyer. He didn’t want to think of it as old fashion but perhaps...classic. “I figured you’d be taking me to the ghost zone now.”

“I did.” Kravitz said simply, and when Taako turned slightly to look at him he was hanging his cloak on a tall coat stand. “This is where I live. Well, where I reside.”

“You took me to your house?” Taako raised a brow. “That seems against protocol, hmm?”

“It’s definitely not standard operation, but as you said,” Kravitz shrugged. “You’ve had a shitty month or two so I figured maybe you’d want to drink a bunch of wine and have a good cry or ….whatever.”

“Spectral wine sounds fucking incredible.”

**

Taako wasn’t sure if ghosts couldn’t sleep or if they just didn’t ever need rest. He’d try to sleep, but not very hard and he’d meditate when he wanted to mentally check out for a few hours, but it was different and he missed sleeping.

Ghosts could, as it turned out, pass out after drinking entirely too much spectral wine.

He blinked awake on a plush couch, nose toward the cushioned back with a soft, fuzzy, black blanket draped over him. He wasn’t entirely sure how he ended up horizontal on the couch, but he was almost completely positive he hadn’t tucked himself in or put away his own wine glass.

The elf sat up feeling woozy but not entirely hungover and wondered briefly if there was any other food in the Astral Plane he could eat. If there was wine, why the hell not?

He got up to explore Kravitz’s house a little, calling out to his host a few times with no reply. Oh well.

There was a kitchen, but it was completely empty save for some junk food snacks, some familiar, some not. He pulled a box of cookies off of a shelf and tore into them, wandering back into the room they’d been drinking in the evening before and saw Lup’s umbrella - his umbrella now, he supposed, grimmly - sitting on the low table in the middle of the room. He remembered refusing to let it go for a while. After a few drinks he’d propped it up on the couch and went to leave the room for just a moment - to use the bathroom or throw up or something…. Do ghosts need to do shit like that if they’ve been eating? - and it had fallen towards him. Kravitz picked up and gently placed it on the table, saying he didn’t want for it to break.

And that’s where it still was this morning next to a speckled sheet of thick paper, folded into a small tent with a simple note written neatly on it in what Taako assumed could only be Kravitz’s impeccable handwriting. Fancy like everything else.

He picked up the paper to read it and put it back down just as quickly.

“Back Soon. -K”

Taako scooped up the umbrella and took it back to the couch with his cookies and shoved another in his mouth with a shaking hand.

He couldn’t have known. Kravitz couldn’t have possibly known, but it hurt nonetheless.

Taako thought about the day that Lup disappeared. He thought about her note and looking for her. He thought about forgetting everything, about Barry forgetting everything then too, about killing Barry…. And if the two of them had forgotten, what were the chances that everyone else hadn’t? He thought about how he finally had found her but it just meant that she was lost, really actually lost. He thought about his own death and as much as he hated being heartbroken over it, he thought about his lost relationship.

And here he was, in an acquaintance's house in the Astral Plane, dead, alone, possibly forgotten, definitely discarded. Taako hugged Lup’s umbrella to himself again, grimacing, and finally let himself dissolve into sobs.

Chapter Text

When Kravitz returned he found an empty box of cookies on the table where the umbrella had been and Taako curled up, reading a book, and wearing the cozy blanket as a cloak. His ears were drooped slightly under the blanket, but besides the very slight outline there was no other hint that Taako was thinking about much at all besides whatever he was reading.

“I’m back. Hope you weren’t on your own for too long.”

“Welcome back, honey,” Taako quipped. “I’d have had a warm meal waiting but your kitchen is the most depressing thing I have ever seen.”

Kravitz laughed. “I spend that energy cultivating my wine collection instead.”

“A fine and worthy distraction, my man, but there is no replacement for some well prepared comfort foods. ”

“Y’know what? I’ll keep that in mind next time I invite somebody’s soul back here.” He smiled and sat on the other end of the sofa. “What are you reading?”

Taako held up the book so the cover was visible. “I’ve never heard of at least half of your collection.”

“They’re not all from the Material Plane.”

“I figured.”

“So, Taako,” Kravitz started after a few minutes of silence. “I had a meeting with the Raven Queen just now.”

“Sounds important.” It was hard to tell if Taako was actually reading, but he didn’t look up from the pages.

“It could be, I think…. We were talking about you.”

Taako’s lips pursed just slightly but he otherwise didn’t move immediately. Crap. It was never a good signs when the adults say they’ve been talking about you. He closed the book and laid it down in his lap. “Cool story, bud. Anything I should know about?”

“She’d like to meet you.”

He felt his insides contract as he ran through everything he had done to ignore, postpone or otherwise laugh in the face of death... And that wasn’t even taking into consideration all of the times he’d met his demise and hadn’t in any way been held accountable. Yeah, this couldn’t possibly be good. “You sure I’m dressed for that?”

This earned another chuckle from the reaper and fuck, Taako liked that the man seemed to think he was funny. Really liked it. “I’m sure she’ll understand.”

“So uh… What’s she want?” Taako kept his voice light.

“It’s not really my offer to make.”

“Offer?”

“It would probably be best if you have her explain and make your decision from there.”

Taako was confused. Everything about the last few weeks had been an overwhelming, confusing whirlwind. One nightmare scenario after another, and being nonchalantly told to maybe just have a friendly little business sit-down with the goddess of death with no other background or details took this entire shitty month up yet another rung. “Huh,” was all he could verbalize.

“So…. would you like to meet with her?”

“Look at me, my dude. Do I look like an idiot? I’d have to be the dumbest elf in this collection of planes to tell a literal god ‘Nah, no thanks, I’m good.’ So yeah. I’ll meet your patron goddess.”

Kravitz shifted in his seat. “You - You really don’t have to. This is a request, not an order, and if you-”

“I already said I would. When is this shindig happening?”

“As soon as possible, ideally.”

Taako exhaled and then made a snow of standing and stretching out his arms and back. “All right then. Let's go.”

“Right now? Like immediately? You don't want to take any time to prepare or think about it or-”

“Hell no. Let's rip this bandage off.” He hooked the umbrella over his wrist and then stood, cross-armed, waiting for the reaper to lead the way.

Kravitz did just that.

**

Moments later Kravitz was leading Taako down long hall. It was dark, but somehow very well lit with silver and gold filagree that shone and flickered in the candlelight. “I can see where you get your eye for decoration, Krav.” It was beautiful, not Taako’s style exactly, but beautiful nevertheless.

“Yes, well. We’re sort of working within a theme.”

“Very dark. So edgy,” Taako smirked and Kravitz ignored an impulse to stick out his tongue at the elf. Be professional, damnit, this is serious.

They approached the end much more quickly than the length of the hall seemed to suggest and Kravitz gave Taako a long, questioning look before motioning at the door before them to open.

The Raven Queen’s throne room was huge, expansive. It seemed to go on forever and there in the middle - or maybe it was the back of the room, Taako truly could not tell - she sat, elevated above them. It was hard to tell where her gown ended and her throne began, everything was darkness and feathers and skulls and rich, velvety accents of color. ‘Fucking iconic,’ Taako thought, trying not to openly grin. ‘This is a LOOK.’

Kravitz took a knee and Taako took entirely too long in noticing or realizing that he should probably have done the same.

“Kravitz,” her voice smooth and dark like wine, “You are always much more formal than you need to be. You only just left.”

Taako was grinning now. He liked this goddess. He liked her a lot. She could throw him right into Hell for being such a pain in the ass and he’d probably still like her.

The reaper didn’t reply to the commentary, standing up as tall as he could. “My queen, allow me to introduce Taako.”

He motioned toward the blonde man, who waved his hand in a crescent and let out an unceremonious “Yello!”

“Yes, You were telling me all about him,” Taako eyed Kravitz but the reaper refused to meet his gaze. “Taako, would you come closer?”

“Shit yeah, your gothness,” he said, having practically halved the space between them already. Kravitz cringed. How hard was it to just be…. well not this for five minutes?

The goddess met Taako at the base of her throne, gown flowing like the night sky. She towered over the fairly tall elf, her face impossible to make out, shrouded in darkness and mystery, but he could tell that her expression was friendly and welcoming all the same. “Kravitz has told me quite a bit about you, my friend. He says you’ve managed to avoid death a number of times. That you knew about wars and destruction that most mortals had forgotten about. That you know of planes besides ours, that you’ve traveled between them. That there may be a danger following you... You’re a very interesting person, Taako.”

He couldn’t disagree, Taako was interesting. Astounding, even. But hearing a literal goddess tell him so was a level of validation that made him want to scream and laugh at the same time.

“I’m sorry your life ended the way that it did. Istus tells me that it shouldn’t have gone that way.”

Taako blinked, feeling suddenly drained. “What do you mean? I shouldn’t be dead?”

“It seems not. As if some bit of serendipity was supposed to intervene and… didn’t.”

“In that case, I don’t suppose you could just… put me back?”

The goddess shook her head, her expression genuinely apologetic. “I’m afraid not, Taako. You’ve died and death is non-negotiable.”

Taako nodded through a dry mouth. He understood, he did. It sucked and he hated it, but he understood.

“However,” she continued seamlessly, “Kravitz has been convincing me to give you a second chance of sorts.” Taako turned look back at the other man, who was in turn holding his hands together very tightly, maybe even wringing them just a little. He looked away from the pair when Taako looked back toward him.

“You can go from here, spend as much time on the Astral Plane waiting for your loved ones as you’d like, join the rest of the souls and eventually move onto your next life. Or, you could work for me. I take the laws of life and death very seriously and expect my people to do the same, but the time that you would be off of the clock, so to speak, is yours. You’d have all of the same resources Kravitz would have to find what has happened to your friends, your sister.”

Taako’s chest hurt at the mention of Lup and the umbrella suddenly felt very heavy on his wrist. He’d found her already.

“And if the danger that you’ve described comes back to these planes, you would have our support and would be here to help us prepare… What do you think?”

It was a good offer, it really was, and when he looked at Kravitz again the man offered him the tiniest shrug and a hint of a nervous smile.

“Would I be a ghost forever or would I be able to interact with things again? Because no offense but this sucks.”

“You’d be like Kravitz,” she nodded toward him pleasantly.

“I don’t really know what…”

“Of course,” she explained. “He’s not alive nor is he a ghost. He can speak with living, conduct business on the planes they reside in, and in many regards pass himself off as alive. He has access to his magic through me and some other more specific abilities through his position. But his home is in this plane, not amongst the living.”

“Ahh-huh” Taako nodded, absorbing everything as best as he could. He had a million questions about what happened after if he chose to just move on, about what Istus had to say about him, about what the job really was on a day-to-day level, if it was eternal or if he could quit and “move on to his next life” eventually... But it sounded like he’d be able to find his people, speak with them, cook again, punch Sazed in the jaw. And he wanted those things, he wanted them so much.

Taako asked only two questions, though in his mind he had already accepted her offer, “I won’t have to wear this forever, will I?”

The Raven Queen look at him for a moment and then laughed. It was a good natured, kind laugh and holy shit Taako liked this goddess a lot.

“Because I’ve met Krav like four separate times and he’s always in different threads and if I need to look like I’m just coming off of my shift at a fantasy test kitchen forever it’s no deal.”

“You will absolutely get agency back over your appearance.”

“And I’ll still look like this?” Taako waved at his own face. “I’m not down with a downgrade.”

“Not unless you want to change or disguise yourself.”

She was still smiling, Kravitz noticed, and thank every god. This could have so easily exploded in his face.

“You’ve got yourself a deal,”

“Wonderful!” She nodded once. “Take a knee.”

Taako considered why for for just a moment and when he complied she rested a cool hand on his head. “Welcome to our family, Taako. I look forward to seeing what fate has in store for you now.”

When she removed her hand and he stood Taako didn’t feel any different, but he was draped in a cloak that wasn’t there before. It looked so much like Kravitz’s, all darkness and feathered details, but the inside was almost a pale iridescence, shifting blues and pinks. “That will certainly stand out,” the goddess smiled. “I’m sure you’ll find Kravitz to be the very best to learn from.”

As they left and walked back down the hall together Taako looked at his new teacher and apparent advocate, “You put me up for that?”

“Yes.”

“Fucking why, dude? I’ve been… well I know how I’ve been.”

Kravitz shrugged. “I thought it would be a good fit. Apparently our Queen agreed.”

**

The moment they were back in Kravitz’s foyer Taako reached for his chef’s hat. He’d tried to remove it countless times over the last month but it never budged. It had been part of his entire form. When this time it came right off he stared at it for a moment and then laughed, almost manic, as he threw it on the ground and reached back for his bun, pulling out only as many pins as he needed to make the damn thing budge. As he unwound it and undid the braid and ran his fingers through a month’s worth of tight waves he just giggled. “This is - this is amazing you have no idea.”

Kravitz just watched the celebratory outburst unfurl as Taako’s hair fell in waves past his shoulders and Taako reached for the top button on his jacket.

“You need to show me how to create rifts immediately so I can go back to the Material Plane and get real fucking clothing… What’s the money situation by the way do we get a paycheck or is there company credit?”

“W-we can do that,” he half answered. Taako was practically stripping in his front room, and Kravitz understood that he’d been wearing this outfit for weeks, but his lack of shame was leaving the man more and more flustered. “Why don’t you give me your cloak to hang up?”

“And where am I living now? Well, not living but you know. Honestly though, my dude, I’m an A-plus roommate.”

“I…” In the few seconds it took Kravitz to hang the second cloak he found his foyer covered in bobby-pins and clothing Taako was long-sick of wearing. “I assumed you’d just stay here until we figured something else out. Unless you want to go elsewhere. ”

“Nah, man. This is fine by me.” Taako was halfway out of the room. Why don’t you give me the official tour then? Show me where I’ll be staying.”

Kravitz scooped up the discarded clothing, dumping it in Taako’s arms. “This way.”

**

Everything he was taught Taako picked up on the first try. Summoning his scythe, accessing the book, creating rifts, shifting his appearance into the reaper form. None of it was even the remotest amount of a challenge. Kravitz was impressed, if the slightest bit jealous. It had taken him hours to master each of these abilities, but Taako just did it. “Natch,” he’d said after Kravitz pointed out how effortless his growth had been.

“Now if you could just… look the part,” he motioned towards Taako’s ensemble.

“What’s wrong with my look, babe?” Taako posed, knowing exactly what was wrong with his look.

“Y’know what, I can’t put my finger on it. But it might be the sparkles and pastels. They don’t exactly scream, ‘Agent of the Raven Queen.’”

“Exactly! It gives me the element of surprise.”

They’d been practicing in something like a clearing on the Astral Plane. It looked familiar, similar to being alive but everything was just a little off. The colors or the movement of the grass - something. Taako couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he knew he wasn’t trying that hard to figure it out, either. The umbrella rested off to the side, maybe twenty feet from the reapers, sitting on the rim of a gigantic hat Taako has insisted upon. Like everything else, Kravitz had tried to argue that it may not be the aesthetic they wanted to aim for, but clearly Taako’s entire plan had been different and there was no talking him out of anything.

“That’s not… how any of this works.”

Taako shrugged. “Maybe not for you. But I’ve already established that I’m friggen- huaghh!!!!” the scythe was knocked from his hand with a powerful magic blow and spun through the air before skidding across the ground. “What the fuck was that?!”

Kravitz’s laughter was response enough. “I win.”

“That doesn’t count,” Taako scoffed.”

“Element of surprise.”

“Asshole,” he turned to retrieve his weapon when he noticed the umbrastaff was shaking slightly, “Oh -” and then inverting “-shit,” and before he could take another two steps the scythe had been pulled towards the umbrella’s point and disappeared.

Kravitz gaped, wordless for a long moment. “What the hell just happened?”

“Right. Right right right, I forgot. Lup’s umbrella eats defeated magic or something,” Taako tried to remember the exact wording she’d used to describe it, but that had been more than a decade before and he couldn’t remember every sentence ever uttered towards him. “And… I guess you defeated the scythe so….. Buh-bye?”

“I… I don’t even have words for this,”

“Right? Pretty wild.”

“No, I mean, this is bad. That’s your main tool as a bounty hunter and I don’t want to have to explain that you need another one because your fucking umbrella ATE the first.”

“Maybe it learns,” Taako said, picking up the umbrastaff and spinning it behind himself lightly before holding it out at the ready. “Like maybe I can do reaper stuff with the umbrella now and we won’t need to go ask for a new scythe”

He’d used the umbrella to cast spells a number of times in the last few days, but this was different. “I don’t think that will work, Taako,” Kravitz argued while the elf swiped downward with the point of the umbrella. “Your scythe is a very very specific tool for Raven Queen related business and-” there was a rift there. “How did you do that?”

Taako stuck his head through the surprising doorway and the back out to look at Kravitz with a smug grin that unequivocally said, ‘you will never hear the end of how right I just was.’ “I think I can do reaper shit with the umbrastaff now, my dude.”

“That’s… no! How?!”

“I’m amazing, Kravy.” Taako pat him on the cheek and then stepped back, holding the umbrastaff out slightly. “Round two?”

Chapter Text

Over the weeks and months that followed Taako let himself fall into his new life. It became routine, comfortable even, and in the moments when he was too busy to think too hard about his sister he even considered himself happy. Now that he remembered her, not having Lup to chatter with, bounce ideas off of, even just gossip with felt alien and unnatural and when Kravitz wasn’t in earshot Taako found himself speaking to the umbrella like other people spoke to gravestones. It wasn’t the same, it wasn’t even close, but it was comforting on his worst days and satisfying on his best.

Though Kravitz had welcomed him to make himself feel at home, Taako only made any changes at all to his own room, more of an oversized disorganized walk in closet than anything else, and the kitchen. And here Kravitz was amused to learn that while neither of them needed to eat or sleep in the strictest sense, Taako loved to do both. Their cabinets quickly became fully stocked and there was always something unique and delicious to eat or some promising new smell wafting through the rooms. Taako had claimed to be a good roommate, and he was by and large proving himself right. He mostly kept his mess regulated to his own room and knew exactly which wine to pair with whatever he had “just thrown together” that day.

But besides working, cooking, and sleeping Taako wasn’t often around. He’d immediately started looking for the Starblaster crew and Kravitz didn’t exactly need to be involved in that. Taako knew that he hadn’t been completely forthright about how many times his friends had each died and if his higher-ups hadn’t figured out that there were other people running about the Material Plane who should have moved in at least a few handful of deaths ago… well Taako wasn’t going to go out of his way to fill them in. So he kept Kravitz away from this particular project, letting him know that he appreciated the help, “but Taako will take it from here, my man. This is a me job.”

Mearl and Magnus were easy to find. Obnoxiously easy, in fact. This is a joke, who left them in literally the perfect places, sort of easy.

Lucretia and Davenport were more of a challenge, the official record had them listed on the moon, and that couldn’t been right. And Barry…. Well Barry was a different issue altogether. Taako knew that Barold was likely a lich, he’d fallen off of the ship after being shot with a bolt of whatever-the-distraught-wizard-had-managed and neither of those things were easily recovered from - especially not for humans. But there was no record of a lich that met Barry’s description in the Stockade, or any active bounty for him out in the planes so maybe he’d manage to just fly under their eye up until this point. Taako frowned at the umbrastaff before pushing away the notion that he may have been destroyed in his lich form. He’d become far too familiar with how doable this was since becoming a reaper.

Taako sighed, carefully returning every paper he’d pulled out of place to pour through. “Guess I’ll go to the beach.”

**

Lucretia wore sunglasses and a large hat and sat on a blanket on the sand watching a dwarf throw a giggling little girl into the waves before she ran back out again. A little behind him on another blanket was another dwarf with a young child, both playing with some brightly colored shells.

Merle was happy, Lucretia smiled, and it reminded her that this was worth it. That she’d made the right choice. She’d needed this today. After Taako had died Lucretia almost couldn’t stand the guilt. She’d put him in that cart, given him that show and in the end…. How had it backfired so spectacularly? What the hell could have gone so wrong?

She’d immediately checked in on Magnus and Merle and they were both fine - happy and loved it seemed. Maybe this was just a fluke. An awful, unforgivable fluke.

She’d attended his funeral and cried at her desk and searched tirelessly for a way to keep her remaining friends safe or bring them home or something... anything. Being hands-off indefinitely was slowly killing her, but she’d retrieved the first relic, her staff, and that was something at least. She was off to a start. The bell would be next and she already had a lead.

Lucretia stood, holding her hat through a gutsy little breeze and folded up her blanket, promising silently to be back soon. But every bit of her froze when she turned and saw Lup.

There was just no mistaking her. Only two elves in the entire planer system looked quite like that and Taako was…. But even if there had been a question that umbrella was one of a kind. The colors faded downward and looked like a glittery sunset with lace trim and gold accents and Lucretia was calling her long-lost friend’s name before she could stop herself. When the elf turned she saw the perfect, magic night sky inside of the umbrella. That was the Lup’s umbrastaff, Lucretia couldn’t be more sure.

The two made eye contact and, “Lucretia?”

She was walking towards her friend as fast as the sand would let her. How did she remember? Did she remember everything? It didn’t matter right now except… Except that wasn’t Lup’s voice.

“Lucy?! What the hell are you doing here?” It was Taako.

“T-Taako?” she stammered, freezing just before him. She’d lost her hat at some point but they were both under the shade of the umbrella now.

“That’s my name, don’t wear it-” he stopped when she launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down for a hug.

“I heard that you’d died.”

The elf was silent and still for a moment before putting one arm around her in return, the other still holding onto the handle of the umbrella. “I kinda did, Lucy.”

She expected to wake up soon. ‘This was exactly the sort of cliche bullshit that happens right before your dream turns all nightmarish and wake you up in a cold sweat,’ she told herself. But she didn’t wake; she just stayed. “What?”

“Yeah…. It’s a long story but basically some douche I used to sleep with poisoned me and now I’m working for the Raven Queen. Figured I’d check up on the those chucklefucks we used to live with in my free time,” he cocked his head towards Merle, now being buried in the sand.

“Taako.. It’s… it’s so good to see you I… I sort of don’t know what….how…”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “It’s a fuckin’ lot, right?” He paused and shifted and then, “Listen, Lucretia. I didn’t remember anything for a while. It came back after I croaked, but for a while I just didn’t remember… any of this. Any of you guys. Home. The ship. Any of it.”

She searched his face for any sign that he’d figured out what she’d done but…

“Do you know what happened? I’m guessing Magnus’s goddamn fish...”

She shook her head.

“Do you remember everything?”

Lucretia chose her words very carefully. He’d need to know eventually, but she had to figure out how to tell him. Explain it so he’d understand. She needed some time to organize her thoughts and right now, blindsided on a beach by happenstance wasn’t it. “I think so. I remember all of you.”

Taako felt his stone of farspeech vibrate slightly and he pulled it out to hear it better. “Well that’s work.”

“Have to go?”

“Mmmmmhm.”

“Let’s do this again, Taako. But on purpose.”

“Totally,” he tossed her his stone. “Give me your info and I’lll hit you up. I’ve actually been trying to find you but I keep seeing that you live on the moon and then I close my book and take a nap because that shit is bananas.”

“Well it’s sort of true.”

“I’msorrywat?”

“I’ll show you. Next time.”

**

The job was small and short, a ‘push in the right direction,” as Kravitz had called it. These jobs didn’t often need both reapers and while Taako liked to pretend he was all sarcasm and indifference, Kravitz had figured out early that he cared deeply in secret and thought that the elf’s brand of humor laced honesty would help many people feel more comfortable in their situation. For the most part he’d been right.

When he returned home he hung his cloak next to the slightly larger one, a habit Kravitz had insisted on, and Taako silently admitted that it was nice to immediately know if the other was home. Plus, it kept the only part of Taako’s outfit that ever looked even remotely official from getting lost in the disaster that was his room.

Taako wandered few a through rooms, looking for his roommate. He wasn’t in the living room, or music room - what a nerd, Taako thought with a cockeyed grin. Maybe the conservatory. Kravitz called it that, but in reality it was a nice sized room with a view.

Sure enough, that’s where he was, sitting on the ground looking out at what Taako thought might just be everything.

Despite living there for a number of months, Taako still wasn’t sure exactly how this house worked - where it was. Was it in one place somewhere on the Astral Plane? Did it hover above somehow? Was every room somewhere different, all tied together perfect, seamless, magic? He meant to ask but he never seemed to remember when there was an opportunity to inquire, and the conservatory was one of the things that Taako had the most questions about.

The floor ended abruptly in a large window that looked down on the plane and out and up at a swirl of stars and galaxies. It was beautiful, breathtaking even, but at first the view had freaked Taako out, left him feeling sick and like he was falling. Being dead made the fear feel almost ridiculous the longer he stayed here.

Taako walked right over to where Kravitz was sitting, legs over the edge and reached into a bag on his belt. “Got you something, my fella.”

Kravitz looked up at him questioningly until Taako tossed a small bag of salt water taffy to him. “Went to see your friend at the beach today, huh?”

“Merle, yeah,” Taako sat next to Kravitz, laying his umbrella on the other side of him. There was never anything fun to bring back when he spent an afternoon watching Magnus, but beach shops always had kitch and candy.

“Still doesn’t remember you?”

“I didn't bother talking to him this time,” Taako shrugged before reaching over to take back one of the candies from the bag he’d handed to his roommate. Neither Merle nor Magnus had remembered him, it was like they were meeting for the first time and Taako had decided not to push it. As far as his friends knew, he was an acquaintance they had met “like a hundred years ago, no big deal.” But Taako remembered everything about them so clearly. Even Kravitz knew a fair amout them at this point, Taako had regaled him with enough stories of their misadventures in training at the IPRE academy and their travels. He was always careful in which details he revealed, but overall the stories were fun and unobtrusive and Kravitz always seemed genuinely interested in the elf’s stories. “Weird thing happened though.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Ran into another friend from then, Lucretia? I think I told you about her.”

“Writer.”

“That’s the one,” Taako was twisting the candy wrapper back and forth in his hand, making no actual effort to get to the sweets inside. “She remembered me. She’d heard that I had died. She thought I was Lup at first.”

Kravitz looked at his friend. This was serious, this was big! “How did she remember?”

“I don’t know. But she did. So we’re going to get together sometime and figure it out I guess,” Taako shrugged unconvincingly. The whole thing was weird and had left him feeling just a little like he had been sucker-punched. But this was good news. This was another step in the right direction, another clue.

Kravitz was quiet and thoughtful for a moment. “What would you do if whatever made people forget the first time happens again?”

“Honestly, my man? Nothing. I don’t think this shit affects the dead so all of this,” he motioned generally around himself, “would stay the same. And nobody out there who counts except Lucretia remembers me anyway so bring it.”

“Fine,” Kravitz smirked, popping a candy in his mouth. “Fun hypothetical then. How would you convince me that we were friends if I did forget?”

“Friends? Fucking weak, If you completely forget who I am I’m convincing you that I’m the love of your life. I’m getting the total devotion I deserve.” Taako laughed at his own joke but the expression on Kravitz’s face gave him immediate pause. He’d swallowed his candy and then deadpanned, staring at the elf. “I - I mean I obviously wouldn't really do that. That would be creepy as shit and I wouldn’t take advantage of-”

“Taako.”

“Like totally and completely joking,” he hated himself a little for making this so weird. What was he thinking?!

“Taako,” Kravitz tried again before continuing slowly. “I don’t think you’d need to work that hard to convince forgetting-me that I’d be happy with you.”

“Ah..?”

“It wouldn’t even be hard to convince not-forgetting-me that I’d be…” he was running his fingers gently through blonde hair. “y’know…”

“Ah...Oh! Oh.”

Their eyes locked and Taako thought about the situation for less than a second before leaned towards him until their lips met. He let his hands trace up Kravitz’s arm and over his shoulder and let himself be pulled a little closer, kissed deeper.

He ran a hand up through locs and felt a finger tracing his cheekbone and shit he’d almost forgotten how nice it felt to kiss someone - to let somebody else make his chest feel this warm and full. He hadn’t felt wanted this way since -

Taako jumped back and to a stand suddenly, “Nope. Nope nope no I’m sorry but nope I… nope.”

Kravitz looked shocked, maybe even hurt but he didn’t say anything and Taako took that opportunity to run. “I’m going to …. just…” he motioned towards the door and then left at a speed that could only technically be considered walking.

Kravitz watched him go and then leaned forward, resting his forehead in his hands and groaned. Fuck. How had he screwed that up so badly? He really thought they were on the same page, but apparently they weren't even in the same book.

He didn't notice the umbrastaff shaking slightly or the glow coming from its point, but he did feel a familiar presence. It was dark and dead and angry and Kravitz turned to see the umbrella powering itself up, barely ducking out of the way before a beam of light and fire shot over him and into the wall, leaving a scorched crater behind.

“What the fuck?!” he sat motionless, doubled over and refusing to take his eyes off of the umbrella for what felt like forever.

But it seemed to be done. Maybe recovering from its show of force, maybe just having expelled a random misfire - Kravitz wasn't sure.

He stood slowly and approached it carefully from the side, gingerly picking it up in the middle and holding the umbrella out at arm’s length, deciding whether or not to go find the its owner.

In the end he found himself knocking on Taako's door, all anxiety and awkwardness, umbrastaff still held carefully away from him, pointing at the floor. Taako didn't respond and Kravitz sighed. Of course he didn't answer, why would he?

“Taako? Look I didn't want to bother you but… your umbrella.”

The door opened only a little but he was in the crack. “Oh right. Thanks.” he reached for his weapon.

“I think it tried to kill me.”

Taako blinked at this, holding his umbrella I'm both hands. “What?”

“Yeah like…” he started to ramble, “Not now just whenever there's sort of a hole in the conservatory wall if you want to see it went haywire and shot at me just now and-”

“How? It's a staff, it doesn't shoot itself,” he'd opened the door a little wider now.

“It ate your scythe on its own…”

“That's different, it was designed for that shit. Spells are a different thing.”

“I really don't know,” Kravitz sighed helplessly, looking at the floor instead of directly at the elf.

Taako inspected at the umbrella in his hands for a quiet moment. “I'll take a look at it. Maybe it's broken or something. I don't know exactly how she built it, but… I'll see if I can figure anything out.”

“Sure,” he waited for just a moment and then before he could help himself, “Taako listen about just now.”

“Dont.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn't have-”

“Krav, stop.”

“I was reading signs that weren't there and I fucked up and I don't want you to feel weird about living here or wo-”

He found his mouth suddenly covered by Taako’s hand “Shut up, Kravitz. Just stop.”

He was looking down at the ground and his ears were back like a scared cat but he inhaled hard and continued talking. “You didn’t do anything wrong, man. You were following signs that were totally there. I just freaked out. Ok?” Kravitz nodded and Taako removed his hand. “The last person I let myself fall into a thing with literally murdered me and that’s the biggest, reddest flag against relationships for pretty much the rest of eternity and like… best case scenario this is forever and worst case scenario this is forEVER so...”

“Taako, I have no…. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Yeah well,” his shoulders drooped. “Still.”

“I can wait if you need more time,” he felt pathetic saying it but they had a very, very long time, if not eternity. And this felt right. If a couple of years made Taako more comfortable trusting him, Kravitz would wait.

“Look, there’s no version of reality where I’m not totally into this. You’re fucking dreamy, you know that right? I think about that scenario like three times a day, conservatively.” Kravitz blushed, but chuckled and Taako stole a glance at his face, the tension lifting a little. “I’d be okay - really okay, way more than okay - with a ‘coworkers who are hooking up’ sort of situation. But I just can’t do anything serious. I might never.”

“I’d be okay with that.”

“Really?” Taako eyed him, more than a little skeptical. “You seem like the romantical, commitment, long term real relationship type.”

“Well… yeah. Usually. Or I was before… It’s been a while, a really long while. And like I said, I’m willing to wait for you to trust me more.”

“So you’re okay with keeping this light?”

Kravitz nodded and reached for Taako’s hands.

“Well. All right then.”

**

Lucretia’s office wasn’t quite stark, but it was serious and professional. Maybe even unfinished like the rest of her faux moon base. The painting behind her showed her closest friends in the universe and Taako couldn’t stop looking at it - at everyone he’d ever considered family.

She’d planned on telling him everything, she’d had an entire speech penned down and an apology prepared, but when Taako arrived they started to catch up instead and she was reminded that he had died, that he was only here now at all because a goddess seemed to have taken a liking to him. She was reminded of how he’d lost Lup and while he tried to mask it, Taako clearly still hurt for his sister’s presence in his life. She listened to him ramble about his show and cooking and his sarcastic commentary about his own murder and how he’d handled it until Kravitz had come to save him from himself. He told her about finding Lup and her umbrella, that she must have died locking her gauntlet away in Wave Echo Cave, about meeting the goddess of death and being offered a job, about the astral plane and his friendship with a grim reaper.

Lucretia listened to everything her old friend had to say without interrupting and felt her resolve crumble into powder. How could she possibly tell him that she’d taken every memory of his sister for seven years? That she’d been indirectly responsible for his death?

And so she didn’t. She made small talk and reminisced about their time aboard the Starblaster and laughed and when Taako finally asked what he wanted to know, what he needed to know about their shared memories, about his failing him for so long, she dodged his questions. She didn’t answer where she could and where she had to she lied.

“I don’t know Taako. I wish I had more for you but…” she looked over at her staff. She’d tell him later, when she told everyone else. When the job was done. They would understand then, they’d have to.

Taako leaned back in his seat, discouraged. “It’s fine, Lucy. This is just so fucked up.” He took a moment to decompress and stared at the ceiling. “So where’s Davenport? Is he around here with you?”

The question shouldn’t have thrown her off guard but it did. “Yes. But… he doesn’t remember anything either. He hasn’t been doing well so I’ve kept him close by, kept an eye on him.”

“How long did it take you to find him?”

“Not long,” it wasn’t a lie, persay, but the implication made her stomach sink.

“Can I see him?”

“I think he’s sleeping, actually. Next time I’ll make sure he’s awake to see you, though.”

Taako’s ears twitched downward just slightly in disappointment and Lucretia knew that he had more questions, more suspicions, but he didn’t push the subject any farther and when he had to leave it was Taako who initiated their hug.

“I missed you,” she whispered into his shoulder.

“I know, Luce. I missed you, too.”

Chapter Text

It had been about two years since Taako had died, since he’d started working with Kravitz, since the two had become not-romantically-involved. Taako checked in on Lucretia regularly and true to her word she’d made sure Davenport was there to spent time with at least briefly.

And it was awful.

Taako hadn’t realized how bad it would be when Lucretia had said that the captain “wasn’t doing well.” Understatement of the fucking decade, he’d told Kravitz later. This man had so many times navigated them through storms of nothing and death to save all of their lives. He’d taken command and acted as a parent to every one of them and now….

Taako never went back to visit without some new ridiculous baked treats for his captain. It didn’t help, but even on especially bad days when he was only able to manage his own name they seemed to make him happy.

But besides Lucretia and the captain, Taako found nothing. No new information nor any new hints. Not Barry or the ship or their custom weapons. Nothing.

And honestly, he was almost okay with this. His job was strangely enjoyable, oftentimes even meaningful... fulfilling. The whatever-it-was with Kravitz had become ideal; happy and comforting and warm and light. Sometimes he would even coordinate with Lucretia to watch their friends together.

They were together when they realized Merle had uprooted his entire life and left his family. Taako rolled his eyes, grumbling some sardonic commentary at the dwarf’s expense. Lucretia frowned, wondering how she’d miscalculated where he’d be happiest.

They were together when they watched Magnus mourn his wife. Taako hugged his arms around himself and let his ears fall while Lucretia sighed and wrung her hands. Things kept going wrong for these three. For everyone she’d tried to protect. Something needed to change. “I hate being away from them.”

“Ditto, Luce.”

They didn’t make smalltalk for the rest of the visit. They didn’t gossip or chat. Taako had tried a few times but Lucretia was unusually quiet; no dry quips or planning for their next visit. When Taako opened up a portal to take her home she pulled him into a hug and didn’t let go for a long time.

“Are you happy?” she finally asked, quietly.

Taako thought about it for a moment. “Y’know what? I sort of am. A hundred things suck sometimes, but over all this is pretty alright.”

“Good,” was all she said before letting go and leaving. That was enough. She’d stick to the plan.

**

The next time Taako saw her she was twenty years older.

“LUCY WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?!”

She shrugged, sitting at her desk as if nothing had changed. “Bad run-in with some liches.” The act was convincing, but Taako could see right through it, he’d known her for more than a human lifetime, of course he could see through her.

“Well which the fuck ones?”

“Don’t worry about it, T.”

“Fuck you don’t worry about it. You know what my job is right? I’ll go ruin them right now.”

She rubbed her temples and sighed. It was a good offer, and this would be easier if he knew at least a little…

“I was looking for the Animus Bell.”

“Goddamnit Luce are you kidding me?”

“And it went badly.”

Taako motioned at her staff, “Aren’t we supposed to be keeping them away from each other?”

She paused for a moment and then slowly nodded. “Yes. But it’s hurting people where it is. It needs to be somewhere else. Somewhere safe.”

The reaper stared at her. She wasn’t telling him something, but he knew Lucy. If she said this was the best move, she wasn’t acting without forethought. “Where? Kravitz and I will get it and take care of the liches.”

“I don’t want you to do that.”

“Again, my literal job description.”

“No, Taako. I mean that this needs more research and planning. I’m not going to send you after it with nothing. Not after how it backfired for me.”

“We’re in a KINDA different place, Lucretia.”

“Still.” Taako started to argue further but she cut him off, “Besides, I have other plans already in place. I don’t need to pull you away from your life to-” oh shit, was that bad choice in words? Taako didn’t seem to notice, but she didn’t have a chance to finish her sentence all the same.

“Fine. I don’t want to take on more work than I need to anyway. But if you ever need help with this…”

“I’ll let you know. Until then, just trust me.”

He did.

**

The call about Phandalin was strange and terrible and gave Taako flashbacks of a decade earlier. How the hell had this happened? The gauntlet had been locked up, safe and sound, far from anyone who could get to it. Lup had seen to that and yet this could only have been the work of the her creation. How!?

There was so much death here, so many people who were terrified or confused or just hadn’t had the chance to realize what was happening and it made for an exhausting, depressing, defeating day of work.

Taako felt himself beginning to dissociate early into the process. Speaking with ghosts had become difficult despite the years of experience and when Kravitz noticed how Taako stared through things or off into the distance he decided to quietly take on the brunt of the job himself. Taako had tried to concentrate, he really did, but he just saw black glass and fire and avoidable death and it made him want to scream.

Kravitz finished mostly on his own, not even approaching his partner, sitting on the very edge of the glass, until he job was done. “Taako?”

“Lup’s gauntlet did this.”

Kravitz blinked for a moment, trying to remember the details that Taako had told him about that particular item. They blended together a little. “Yeah, this sounds like what you described.”

“No, this IS it. I’ve seen it before. Nothing else does this.” Kravitz didn’t reply, he didn’t know how. “I don’t understand how this happened. It was locked in Wave Echo Cave, she made sure it was there to stay and nobody else even knew where it was. So how did this happen?!”

“I guess somebody found it.”

“Fucking great, so who? How did they get it out of there? How did they know it was there? Where the hell are they now? Where is the gauntlet?”

“I don’t-” Kravitz stopped and then sat next to Taako, taking his hand. “Taako, I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out.”

The elf rested his head against collarbone in response, mumbling, “This fucking sucks, Krav.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence for a few long minutes before Taako felt an itch. He felt eyes on him, the familiar uneasiness of being watched. Taako looked up and around and Kravitz was already focusing on something just out of sight. “Do you feel that?”

“I feel like I’m being peeped on.”

“No. Well maybe. But no, I feel a lich.”

“You always feel like you’re in the same room as a lich,” Taako teased with the very little humor he could muster.

“This is different.”

Taako took an exaggerated breath. “Ok, let’s go find your ghost.”

They were tracking it for four days.

**

Kravitz ducked behind a tree and groaned. How the fuck was this lich this fucking prepared?! Booby traps? Really!?

And it was made so much worse by the elf laughing hysterically next to him.

“Why is this funny to you?” Kravitz glowered at his partner.

“That noise you made!” Taako sputtered. “-when you were surprised.” The glower darkened. “And babe I don’t know if you know how close you came to getting singed-”

“YEAH I FUCKING NOTICED THANK YOU!”

“Look I’m sorry but this is a lich I want to be friends with. This shit is hilarious.”

“This isn’t funny and we don’t start friendships with liches, Taako.”

The elf looked carefully off at the closest tree. Well, maybe you don’t. Maybe I don’t now. But let’s not make assumptions. “Why don’t we split up? This is obviously spooky ground zero and then you won’t need to listen to me laughing at you for a while.”

“You’re coming dangerously close to sleeping on the couch.”

“I have my own room, dingus.”

“Get out of here.”

**

Taako meandered through the woods, umbrella in hand. “Hey my creepy dude,” he called into the trees. “I promise I’m the good cop here; you definitely don’t want tall dark and handsome to find you so let’s not make this extra hard, yeah?”

It didn’t earn him a response, but Taako did notice a quick bit of movement and a flash of red moving quickly away and to the right. Gotcha.

Taako pursued and didn’t notice the clicking sound beneath his feet until it was almost too late. He managed to flip out of the way of any damage, but the light was blinding and then smoke was pouring into the area and shit this dude had thought of everything. Taako coughed on the trap and then shifted to his reaper form, not the ideal aesthetic, but if the bounty wanted to play hardball... “Ok, fucko. I tried.”

The flash of red bolted farther into the trees again and the reaper cut a doorway where he stood, stepping calmly out feet from where his mark was running. He’d expected a well-prepared lich to see him - at least avoid running straight into him at full force. But the robed figured bounced off of him with a “GHFUFH” and landed backwards on the ground, prone and partially obscured in the still dissipating smog.

“Well that’s embarrassing,” Taako laughed, shifting back to his elfen state. “Now, can we be done with this?” He pointed the umbrastaff and attempted a simple enough trapping spell but ….nothing came out.

Taako blinked and shook the umbrella and the lich said, “Taako! Taako, it’s me.”

The reaper looked down at his gravel-voiced undead bounty in shock, finally getting a decent look at them as the smoke finished drifting way and neither was running or leaping over anything. “B-Barold!?”

**

Kravitz heard an explosion in the direction Taako had gone in while the elf was still chuckling at his expense. It wasn’t far, but it had been both loud and bright and made the reaper nervous as he took off towards it. When he finally caught the glint of sparkle off of Taako’s still ridiculously inappropriate clothing he made a beeline, smooshing his partner’s face between his hands, “Are you alright?!”

Taako had a look of shock that was quickly being replaced with humor and warmth, “Yeah, bone daddy, I’m fine.” His left hand hooked on the back of Kravitz’s right affectionately. “Taako’s totally fine over here.”

“Don’t call me that. There was an explosion,”

“It was a distraction, nothing that should have actually hurt either of you,” the lich that Kravitz had somehow not noticed just feet from him said, his voice low and raspy.

The reaper instinctively made his scythe appear and then Taako was in front of him again waving his arms a little, “Ahhhhh not so fast on this one babe.” Kravitz looked at Taako in utter confusion and then back at the lich, not making any effort to flee and shrugging a little and then back to Taako.

“Um…. darling... What the fuck?”

“Thiiiiis,” Taako motioned towards the figure behind him, “is Barry.”

“Barry.”

“Yes.”

“The Barry you’ve told me about.”

“That’s the one.”

“From the plane you’re from.”

“The very same.”

“Taako-”

“I’ll take care of this one.”

It was a hard request to argue, this wasn’t just some lich to Taako. Kravitz sighed, glaring a little over Taako’s shoulder at the robed undead man. “All right.”

“Can we like… get couple of minutes?”

Kravitz heard the implication behind Taako’s words, ‘a few minutes without you,’ and hated it entirely. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll be right here when you’re done.”

“Thanks,” Taako kissed him on the cheek and turned, ushering apparently-Barry farther into the darkness.

“Boyfriend seems nice,” Barry broke the silence after a few steps.

“He’s not my boyfriend. More like a shift manager I’m banging on a really regular basis.”

“Mmmhm.”

“Don’t,” Taako warned. “I was going to ask how you managed to avoid any reapers for the last ten years, but now I’m surprised we got this close.”

“Honestly, you wouldn't have gotten within a mile if I didn’t want you to, Taako.”

“Ok first of all I hate this new cocky Barold.”

“Second?”

“How did you know I’d remember you, my dude? Have you seen the others? They don’t remember shit.”

Barry nervously rubbed the back of his neck, still very much himself despite his undead state. “There’s a lot there, T…. I figured you were probably dead if you were working for the Raven Queen these days so I took a gamble. As far as everyone else… Yeah, man. I saw them a few hours before I saw you in Phandalin…. Or where it was.”

“They were there?!”

“Yes, but they’re fine.” Barry clarified quickly. “Taako, I have so much to explain about what I’ve been doing since I fell off The Starblaster. Way too much to go into here and now.”

The reaper stole a glance back in Kravitz’s general direction. “Honestly, my man, so do I. Do you have a stone of farspeech? We can meetup when Krav isn’t hovering.”

“I did, but it got destroyed. I might be able to scrounge up another…. In the meantime, I’ll just tell you where my lab is.”

“You have a lab?” The lich nodded. “Barold J. Bluejeans, are you still doing fucking necromancy as a fucking lich with fucking reapers actively chasing you?”

“Yeah… Taako, yes, but-”

“Nahhhh nuh-uh, I don’t care,” Taako held up a hand dismissively. “Tell me about it later. I’m not bringing your ass in so save it.”

**

Taako walked back to where Kravitz was waiting alone, butterflies gnawing at his guts. He’d given Barry a head start before even starting to head back towards where the other reaper was leaning on a tree, nervously tapping a finger on his arm.

“How did it go?” Kravitz stood up and walked towards the elf.

“Fine…” Taako didn’t quite lie. It went great, exactly how he would have wanted this particular meeting to go with this particular lich.

Kravitz didn’t miss his tone though. “Taako…. Where is Barry?”

The elf wrung his hands and thought about how covered in absolute junk his bed had become. It was going to be a real pain to clear all of that off after the fight he was about to start. “I told him to get outta here.”

Kravitz took a deep breath and shut his eyes for a moment. “Come again?”

“Yeah like.. just let him go.”

“Please, puuuhhhleeeease tell me you’re joking.”

“Totally and completely serious, babe.”

He wore an expression that balanced between anger and disappointment for at least ten seconds before taking a quiet step towards the elf. “Why? Why would you do that?”

“It was Barry,” Kravitz balked and Taako tried to further explain. “I’m not going to throw Barry in the Stockade.”

“Then you shouldn’t have told me you were going to take care of it if you-”

“I’m not going to let you throw him in the Stockade, either.”

Kravitz stared at him - into him maybe - for a moment and then turned, cut a doorway in the woods and disappeared.

“Are we going to finish talking about this at home, then?” Taako called after as the portal sealed itself.

**

Kravitz had attempted to give Taako the silent treatment, he tried his hardest for about half an hour but the elf was persistent and talkative and loud and would absolutely not abide by being ignored.

“This is a BIG DEAL, Taako.”

“I agree.”

“Then WHY?!”

“It was B-”

“I don’t care WHO it is. We have jobs. We’re expected to take them seriously. We enforce the natural laws of life and death and you just let a lich walk off because you used to know them?”

“It’s not... “ Taako took a breath. This was so much to explain to someone who hadn’t been there. “He’s not someone I used to know. He’s family. And he’s one of the only two fucking people who knows who I am - who I actually am. Who Lup was. And it’s not like he turned himself all spooky to avoid death forever or haunt a bridge or be a douche - we needed an edge in defeating the hunger and-”

“Wait.”

Taako stopped, hard, realizing how badly he had just slipped. Shit.

“Wait… how long has he been a lich for, Taako?”

The elf cringed. Shit shit shit. “Ummmmmm about thirty… years?”

“So” Kravitz clasped his hands together, rubbing his forehead with both index fingers, “So longer than you’ve been on this plane. Definitely longer than you’ve known me or had this job for?”

“Yes…”

“And you never thought to bring this up in ANY of the stories you’ve told me about these people?”

“Honestly, Krav, I didn’t think you’d be super happy to hear about any liches in my ‘people to definitely find’ list.”

He had tried so hard to not yell, but this was pushing him over the line and he almost didn’t notice his voice raising. “You’ve been intentionally keeping it from me.”

Taako didn’t answer.

“Taako this is bad. Aside from the whole trust issue - that we are definitely going to have to talk about - you can’t just decide to leave the the undead behind. There are consequences for breaking the rules like this. Liches are a biiiig fucking deal.”

‘You left me for a while,’ Taako thought, but didn’t verbalize. “It’s fine. I’ll take the blame for whatever happens, this isn’t on you.”

“That isn’t the point! That couldn’t be farther from the point! Bad shit happens to bounty hunters who go rogue and I don’t want to lose you. They end up in the Stockade themselves or are just erased from reality. Not forgotten, just really completely gone. Or worse.” Kravitz wasn’t even sure what was true and what legend. He’d met so few other reapers while he’d served the Raven Queen and had stopped working with even fewer, but he wasn’t about to take the risk. He couldn’t let Taako take the risk. “You can’t break the rules this badly. You’re important to me.”

Taako crossed his arms and looked at the floor uncomfortably. “Well I’m sorry but tough shit, my guy. There are like seven people I’ll go off book for if I need to and that’s not going to change.”

“Six,” Kravitz said dryly, disappointed and angry.

“What?”

“You said there were seven people on your ship total including you. So six people you’ll throw the rules out the window for.”

The elf raised a brow at him. “I was including you, doofus.”

“R-Really?” Kravitz was taken aback.

“Gods! Yes, really! Are you kidding me with this right now? Of course I’d go off the grid for you if you needed.”

Kravitz watched Taako’s expression carefully and then gently placed his hands on the man’s shoulders, pursing his lips. “We need to…. We can’t keep hiding things from each other like this. We need to be on the same page. Can we start being more honest with each other, Taako?”

His arms were still crossed and he was still giving the floor a long sideways inspection. “Yeah... Krav. I’m real bad at…” He glanced up at the other man’s expression, all concern and seriousness and unadulterated caring. “I’ll try, ok?”

Chapter Text

Barry’s “lab,” as it turned out, was tucked away in a cave, completely unassuming and camouflaged. Hidden in plain sight. It was depressingly sparse compared to what The Starblaster’s science officer would have been used to, but he’d seemed to have scrounged up enough materials to make due. He’d certainly managed to build some insane looking equipment, Taako whistled at a giant vat of cloudy liquid.

“What’s this thing?”

“I’ll explain later,” the lich floated around, watching Taako take in the place he called home. “I think we should start at the beginning.”

“Yeah, totes.” Taako threw himself on a barrel that was either a chair or held something but was being used a chair now, crossing one knee over the other. “Shoot.”

“Taako…” Barry started and then paused, looking hard at his friends. “First, what happened to you?”

“I died.”

“Yes but… how? And when did you find her?” he motioned at the umbrella. “Where was she? I’ve been searching... everywhere.”

Taako signed and held up the umbrastaff to look at before gently leaning it on the wall next to him. “I trusted the wrong person and it got me poisoned. And as for Lup… she was in a cave not far from here. She got her gauntlet locked up in an underground vault and that was it… I honestly don’t know too much else.”

Taako couldn’t imagine telling Barry any of the very few details he did have. Sensitive, caring Barry who had carried such a clear torch for his sister for years before they even officially got together. He didn’t want to tell him that she’d also been poisoned or that she was there alone or that literal dust was all that was left. He didn't want to talk about it at all, but with Barry...

“Her lich form-” Barry started.

“Was nowhere to be found. Not even a hint. And she left this behind so…” he motioned at the umbrastaff.

Taako watched Barry come to the same series of realizations he had years earlier, his composure, his entire form shaking just slightly.

“Barold, I-”

“She has to be somewhere.” Barry stammered. “She has to. There no way she’s the one of us to disappear. There’s no way that I’M still here and she’s…”

Taako didn’t answer, he didn’t know how to. In theory Barry was right. Lup had been the best of them. Smart and capable and strong and likeable. On paper she should have been the one to survive the longest before her lich form even came into play. But that’s not how it had happened and being hopeful about her return had brought him nothing but hurt and loneliness and confusion and he couldn’t bring himself to follow Barry back down that road.

“So what happened with you, Barold?” he finally asked.

The lich collected his thoughts for a short while and then shared his story with Taako. He spoke for hours about becoming a lich after falling off of the ship, about keeping his memories as long as he was in that form, about trying to find Lup and the guys. He spoke about growing his backup bodies to interact with people, “I know that’s some hardcore necromancy, T. You’re not going to-”

“Fuck no, my man. Your creepy weird science secret is safe with me.”

Barry explained how his new bodies didn’t remember anything that his lich form did and told Taako all about his enchanted coin purse and his notes to himself. Taako followed along with everything, nodding, impressed by how creative and innovative his friend had been. Barold had seriously stepped up his game and Lup would have been so, so proud.

“-and then I ran into Magnus and Merle.”

Taako sat up a little straighter.

“They didn’t remember me, of course. And I didn’t know who they were because I was in my human form, but I think they’re the ones who got Lup’s gauntlet from the cave.” Taako felt his stomach drop. It had been them? Why?

Barry glossed over some of the more personally embarrassing details about being kidnapped and passed out in a cave, and he didn’t know what else had happened in there, how those two had recovered the gauntlet at all, but he filled in what he could. His story ended with his death and coming to in his lich form, all memories and frustration - he’d been so close to them this time, SO CLOSE. He told Taako about Phandalin’s final moments and watching their friends get into a glass ball and fly up into the sky and how after a few hours he saw Taako and Kravitz appear and get to work. “I wanted to approach. But you seemed so… distant. And I didn’t want to risk you not recognizing me and giving your friend an opportunity to take me away from this plane. I had to draw you guys out - get you on your own so I at least had a chance to talk with you.”

“I get it, Barold.” Taako nodded and leaned forward, resting his arms on his knee, thinking. “They flew off into the sky in an orb?”

Barry nodded. “Weird, right?”

“Lucretia is living in a sky base,” he said after a pause.

“She is?”

“Yeah, with Davenport. He’s a straight up disaster, by the way, can literally only say his own name half the time. But Luce remembers everything.”

Barry’s form deflated just a little and even as a non corporeal ghost of himself, Taako was able to read complete disappointment on Barry’s face. “That um… I think that confirms some suspicions I’ve been having.”

“Like what?”

Barry blew out a dramatic and entirely unnecessary breath. “I think Lucretia is the one who fed all of our information - all of our memories - to Fisher.”

“That’s-”

“She was the one with all of the records, and the only one of us who isn’t dead who remembers.”

Taako stared at him. Shit. He was right.

“And her favorite plan was always scrapping the splitting-up-the-light idea and putting a bubble around this world.”

Taako didn’t have words.

“If Merle and Magnus still had the gauntlet and were bringing it to her she may be trying to redistribute them or….put them all together again.”

“She has her staff,” Taako added quietly. “She was looking for the bell not long ago. She said she wanted it to be somewhere safer than where it had been. But the gauntlet wasn’t going goddamn anywhere until… If Mags and Merle don’t remember her or the items or anything how would they know what to bring to her?”

“I don’t know.”

“I asked her if she knew anything and she said no. Luce wouldn’t have lied to me.”

Barry said nothing and Taako felt his certainty crack just a little before he got to his feet. “I need to check. If you’re right I can check right now and I’m going to.”

Taako was gone before Barry had a chance to argue.

**

Madame Director bit back an ear-to-ear grin. Everything was coming together. Magnus and Merle were here! In the same room as her and seemingly happy and mostly healthy and every bit as funny and good natured and capable as her friends had ever been. Well, maybe a little more goofy. And they didn't remember all of the skills they'd picked up in their hundred years... But mostly. They were almost entirely exactly themselves.

And they’d managed to bring back the gauntlet - Lup’s gauntlet. Taako had told her exactly where to find it and while nobody else was able to go near the relic without being overcome with desire to possess it, these two made the extraction seem effortless. They may have been relieved to be rid of something so destructive.

Taako hadn’t been to the base in a few weeks, but these two had only just gotten settled. Retrieving the relic and being debriefed and their trial - a complete formality so none of the other Bureau members saw her obvious favoritism - and then the indoctrination… It had all been so much and while the pair took it in stride - they took everything in stride, they always had - she could only throw so much at them. They needed a breather, Lucretia knew. And so did she.

But as she oversaw their interactions with other members of the Bureau and their training and their exploration of the base she knew she’d have to contact Taako soon, make him part of this. He HAD to be part of this. Getting the gauntlet had been do-able for Magnus and Merle, they’d managed it with only a few minor injuries and so many laughs, but with her guidance and Taako’s magic it would be effortless. There would be nothing they couldn’t handle.

But he would have to know. About the process of getting their memories back through the voidfish icker. About collecting the relics and why. About where their memories had gone...

Madame Director was so happy walking back to her office despite the looming inevitability of a difficult conversation with Taako. She’d organize her thoughts, she’d show him her results and proof, she’d convince him. And they’d be a team again. ‘I’ll spend the night preparing and I’ll call him first thing tomorrow,’ she told herself as she opened her office door.

**

Lucretia wasn’t in her usual spot when Taako stepped in, but he was willing to wait. He sat at her desk and waited and waited and when a young man walked in to leave some musical compositions on her desk Taako just made sure he couldn’t be seen by the living and continued to wait.

And eventually she returned with the Bulwark staff in hand. She jumped when she saw the elf appear behind her desk.

“Taako!,” she chuckled. “You surprised me. What’s wrong?” she added, seeing his expression.

“Luce,” Taako stood. “I need to ask you some questions. And I need, really really really need you to be honest with me.”

She blanched slightly and Taako knew, but he continued anyway.

“Why are Magnus and Merle here? I mean, they are here, right?”

“They needed a place to be and I -”

“Did you erase our memories, Lucretia?”

They stared at eachother for what felt like hours. “Taako, you have to understand,” she finally started slowly.

“Did you, though?” Taako cut her off.

“....Yes.”

He felt his hands curl into fists and his ears starting to ring. “You lied to me.”

“Taako, please.”

“You took my whole life from me.”

“It wasn’t an easy choice, Taako. You were all suffering so much.”

“You took Lup and all of my friends, everyone. You left me with Sazed.”

“Please just let me explain. I’ll tell you everything.”

“I thought you ALREADY told me everything, Lucretia. You lied to me!”

“Taako,”

“I’m done.”

“What?”

“I’m leaving. I’m done. With you. And all of this. I’m done giving a shit.”

“Taako,”

“Fuck off,”

**

Taako threw his cloak on the ground and headed immediately for Kravitz’s wine cellar, taking something sufficiently cheap and impossible to care about disappearing before throwing himself in the biggest chair in their living room and taking a heavy swig.

“You okay?”

Taako hadn’t even noticed Kravitz on the couch, but then he didn’t even pay much attention to if his cloak was already hanging in the foyer, either. “Fucking great,”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Kravitz thought for a moment, “Will you want to talk in half an hour if I leave you alone with that bottle?”

Taako shrugged, through another long drink.

Kravitz didn’t push again for a little while - Taako would come around when he was ready and pushing him would just make him run.

Sure enough Taako eventually got up and moved across the room to curl up in his partner’s lap, resting his forehead in the crease between Kravitz’s neck and shoulder.

“What happened, darling?” he tried again, wrapping his arms around the blonde’s slight shoulders and back.

“She lied to me,” he mumbled into dark shirt fabric.

“Who did?”

“Lucretia. She did everything. She made me forget Lup, made my friends forget me, left me in that fucking cart I died in. It was all her.”

Kravitz didn’t know what to say. He knew Taako’s friendship with Lucretia had been a touchstone these last few years. His only anchor to his previous life… and if that was now fractured or destroyed… “Taako, I’m sorry.”

“Whatever man. This is normal.”

“What do you-”

“Everyone leaves.”

“I’m not going to.”

“That’s just what people say before they decide to hurt you,” he was slurring just a little.

Kravitz gently scratched the back of Taako’s head. “For what it’s worth, I’ve basically wanted you since we met,” he said, just above a whisper. “I worked so hard to keep you around - get you to trust me - I’m not going to toss you aside.”

Taako’s arms tightened around him at this. “My family passed me around. My friends. Sazed fucking killed me to get away. Even Lup left me.”

“I...I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. Your sister-”

“She knew.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She went after her gauntlet. She knew how people got around the things we’d made. We saw it first hand. Families would destroy themselves trying to get to them and she went alone.” Kravitz bit his lip, beginning to see where this train of thought was going. “She didn’t bring anyone to watch her back or tell anyone where she was. Our group had fighters and magic users and fucking super smart people and she went alone to get something that we all knew people would kill for. Of course something was going to go wrong - I knew something would go wrong if I chased mine down without a plan and I’m an idiot.” Taako was shaking and Kavitz didn’t know what to do besides just hold him. “It was a perfect fucking shitstorm and she was all I had but she went and she disappeared and she left me all alone.”

He had done his absolute best to not sound like he was crying but he was trembling and Kravitz’s shoulder was damp and of-fucking-course this embarrassing thing was happening.

Kravitz rubbed his back, speechless. He could try to tell Taako how much he cared for him, how much he wanted him around and never wanted to lose him, but in comparison it felt small and weak. It would be hardly any comfort at all. So instead he sat quietly and just made himself present.

The umbrella fell off of the oversized chair Taako had left it on when he’d first come into the room. It rolled slightly towards them and then stopped, the end glowing slightly.

Taako pulled his head off of Kravitz’s shoulder to look at it and went to stand, to put it on a table or hang it on a hook - just anywhere off of the floor - but as he went to move the umbrella jumped slightly, only the hooked handle solidly touching the floor as a beam erupted towards the wall across the room, continuous white-hot power for a solid five seconds.

As quickly as it started everything ended and the umbrastaff again laid quiet and motionless on the ground.

Kravitz balked at it, unable to speak until he followed Taako’s eyes, staring at the wall it had shot.

“HERE” it said simply.

“What does that mean?” Kravitz asked, astonished and surprised and suitably freaked out.

“I have no idea,” Taako sniffled, shaking his head.

**

When Lup heard him for the first time in years - she didn’t know how many - she screamed and cried with happiness. He’d found her.

But something was wrong. She couldn’t feel him, or she could but it was different… wrong. He failed to pick up the umbrella, only able to touch it at all when it had been handed to him and when that other man had touched her magic prison she immediately felt a little different. Not much, but it was noticeable for a moment. But then Taako had her and she yelled for him, hoped he would feel her in there; figure it out. But he didn’t. In his defense, Lup knew, he didn't seem quite in the head-space to figure it out. She told herself that he would. Soon.

And it was so exhausting in there. Some days she struggled to keep consciousness. Usually she sat by and listened, putting the pieces together.

When she realized that Taako had died - that he’d been killed - she fumed and ripped at the curtains and howled. Who? How dare they?! She would destroy them. She’d make them fucking suffer. She didn’t know how, but she would, she promised herself and Taako and any god who was willing to listen.

When Kravitz had kissed her brother, made him uncomfortable, she thought of every gross objectifying creep who had tried to get too handsy. Taako never noticed how every one of them found themselves the next day with a black eye or a missing tooth or a bruise, and she wasn’t going to let this guy get away without a warning… But the more time she spent around him, unknowingly always kept at Taako’s side, the more she liked him. He was kind to Taako, and supportive and affectionate and Lup wanted to meet him, properly meet him, but she was at least glad they had worked things out. That he hadn’t taken her threat too much to heart. She made a mental note to apologize when she could.

When Taako had found their friends she hoped so much they would recognize her prison, that they would figure it out. But nobody ever did.

When Taako had finally caught up with Barry she could have slapped him for thinking this was just any lich. How didn’t he recognize the most handsome lich in the world, idiot? She spent an absurd amount of energy stopping the umbrastaff from doing literally anything to harm Barry, and their continued conversations proved that she’d succeeded. She cried in relief when her two best guys had found each other, started working together again, finally.

And when she’d heard Lucretia’s admission, and how Taako had reacted…

Of course he was upset. Why wouldn't he be? But Lup understood why Lucy did what she had. It was maybe the wrong choice and it hurt her brother, but the intention was pure.

She couldn’t be too upset about it until she heard Taako with the man who he refused to admit he was in a relationship with.

She heard him pretend not to cry, too proud and embarrassed even with someone who was so obviously in love with him. She heard him question anyone’s interest in keeping him around.

She heard him admit that he felt abandoned by everyone.

Even by her.

And it broke her heart.

She had gone alone, it was true. And maybe it was stupid and a bad idea but it had been HER gauntlet destroying cities. Nobody else had to get their hands dirty for that. But now in retrospect… She couldn’t imagine life without him - she couldn’t imagine how he felt, facing an eternity without her.

She paced around her prison, angry at herself and hurting for her twin. She had to tell him that she was here somehow. That’s she’d never meant to leave for as long as she had. She had to but she had so little power most days. So few things ended up consumed by the umbrasaff and Lup felt hungry and drained most of the time, but she had to do something.

She figured that she had a couple of moments worth of magic to send him a sign. Four, maybe five seconds to leave him a message. She considered writing one of their names, but no…he remembered who she was, that would be meaningless here. Or maybe a greeting, a simple hello. But that could be anyone. What she needed was to tell him loud and clear, “Please don’t be sad, I’m right here.” But there was no way she’d have time to convey all of that. Four letters felt like her maximum and then she’d need a good long rest.

“HERE” she’d settle on, hoping so hard that he would understand.

“I have no idea,” he’d said, confused and sad and stuffy.

Lup cursed, frustrated, defeated, exhausted. She’d meditate. She’d rest, she’d regroup and she’d try again. Taako would figure it out. She’d make him see that he had never really been alone. She had to.

Chapter Text

Taako wasn't in bed when Kravitz woke up.

Since they'd become involved Taako had all but forced Kravitz to enjoy the simple pleasure of just sleeping for hours, and while the appeal was lost on him at first, he quickly came to appreciate quiet warm moments, cuddled up together.

After the umbrastaff had gone haywire the two had tried to figure out what had happened, what HERE meant, but Taako was tipsy and emotionally exhausted and Kravitz didn't want to have the man out of his arms any longer than he had to so when the elf gave up on the mystery and threw himself into bed Kravitz followed close behind.

He was rarely out of bed before Kravitz unless it was for work or Starblaster crew related and he was missing now and Kravitz sat up, more than a little worried for Taako.

The elf was in the kitchen, of course he was in the kitchen, Kravitz smiled in relief.

“Good morning,” Kravitz wrapped his arms around Taako's middle and put his face in his loosely braided hair.

“Hey, babe,” Taako reached back and scratched through dark hair.

“You've been busy.”

“Yeah. Couldn't sleep, decided to bake,” Taako shrugged, reaching for a bowl. “There's blackberry basil scones, pumpkin pancakes and this was chocolate banana bread batter if you want to lick the bowl.”

Kravitz took the offering without question, going to work immediately on the wooden spoon still in it. “Trying to butter me up for something?”

Taako thought about this for a moment. The reaper hadn't been too far off and the wizard had learned early on that warm, sweet carbs were the fastest way to win someone over. “I can't just do a nice thing for my best dude?” He put a pan into the oven and boosted himself up on the counter, sitting on the edge. “It's a thank you. Or something,” he finally added.

“Fwer Wott?” Kravitz tried through an especially large bite of scone before realizing he'd leaked at least a few crumbs and covered his mouth with a hand in embarrassment.

It was adorable as fuck and Taako reached out his hands in a grabbing motion until Kravitz was within reach.

“For dealing with my random stupid breakdowns and letting me chug your wine and not losing your mind when my umbrella carved some cryptic bullshit in your wall.”

“Taako,” he scooted closer “OK first of all, you drank my garbage wine. Really, you saved me the effort of finding someone who would be willing to touch it.” It earned him an eyeroll, but he continued. “Second you live here. It's been what, how many years? This isn't my house that you're staying in, it's your home too.”

“I mean natch, but you've been here for fucking I don't know infinity longer than I have and I'm guessing nobody was destroying your walls before.”

“No, but it was lonely, so I feel like I’m still winning out in the end.” Kravitz shrugged.” Third, though…. You’re… You don't need to thank me for comforting you when you're upset, Taako. I - I love you. You know that, right? It's not some big revealing surprise at this point?”

Taako blew out a raspberry and looked sideways at the kitchen sink. “No, I know I just…” he trailed off into nothing.

“Is that okay?”

“Yea.”

“I'm fucking up this ‘keeping it light’ thing, aren't I?”

Taako laughed, “Yeah. Yeah you are, my dude. You fucked it all the way up,” but he grabbed the front of Kravitz’s shirt and leaned forward until their foreheads touched. “Me too, though. I mean, I think.”

Kravitz pulled himself closer to the elf on his countertop pirch. “So am I allowed to use the B word now? Or will that make you-”

“No. No, that's fine if you really want to I guess.”

Kravitz pulled back and kissed his boyfriend on the forehead and then the temple and then the nose and Taako tugged on the shirt he was still clutching, pulling Kravitz down to kiss him on the mouth.

“I love you,” Kravitz mumbled as the oven’s charm chimed in reminder.

“Me too,” Taako said, sending a mage hand to deal with his bread.

**

In the end, despite Lucretia’s betrayal Taako couldn’t quite bring himself to truly be done with any of it.

Barry had been right about Lucretia taking their memoires and it certainly seemed like she had taken a serious interest in finding all of their creations and this gnawed at Taako. He could only think of so many reasons to find all of them, to seemingly dedicate a small army of people to finding them, and every hypothetical that he came up with besides, “Literally lock in a vault to never be seen again,” were worrying.

But then he would remember Lup’s gauntlet, how it HAD been locked away in a vault and even that had been collected too….

Taako would think about the rest of the crew… Sure, Lucretia had lied to his face, but Merle and Magnus hadn’t done anything wrong and Davenport…. Poor fucking Captainport…

And then there was Barry. Taako didn’t want to trust him, he didn’t want to trust fucking anyone anymore. Even the newly established seriousness with Kravitz, despite his patience and tenderness and insistence that he’d never leave, made the elf feel just a little panicked. Like preparing an escape route for when things went bad - they always went bad.

But he’d try to keep Barry at an arm’s distance and look at the umbrella at his side and fail completely. He found himself trusting when every fiber of his being yelled to keep one foot out the door at all times and and caring so much about what was about to happen and what everyone’s role would be despite loudly announcing how he had washed his hands of the entire situation.

And that’s how Taako found himself again spending his free time on Lucretia’s moon base, following his friends, doodling maps, collecting information. When he decided he needed to speak to someone he enchanted himself to look plain and unassuming, someone who could blend in with their surroundings. The rest of the time he stayed invisible and moved silently.

He’d surprised himself to find that his favorite benefit of his contract with the Raven Queen was simply not being seen. It was good for this exact sort of work and he appreciated how dark and appropriate it was for the living to not see or hear death coming.

The wizard found Fisher first by coincidence, following a random young man who’s entire self was so depressing that Taako wanted to smack him upside the head. And he just stared at the voidfish for hours, sitting on the ground when he didn’t want to stand anymore, thinking about everything he’d forgotten. Everything his friends had forgotten. How this thing had single-handedly - or single-tentacledly, whatever - had entirely removed Lup from the memory of almost every living person who had known her.

He didn’t move until a job came through his stone of farspeech, and shit, he had wasted so much time watching this dumb fish he hadn’t seen anything else of interest. But he jotted down where the now very large voidfish was and cut a portal away to get the general job description from Kravitz.

**

When he'd met up with Barry to discuss what they'd found in their separate hunts Taako shrugged with little to add.

“Stupid fish is distracting.”

Barry didn't have words for a moment. He'd just finished presenting a his well researched and impeccably mapped breakdown of every known remaining relic’s most recent use, known location, harm toll, everything Taako would have thought to ask and about a half dozen things he wouldn't have ever considered, too. “So you didn't get anything?”

“Not nothing, my guy. I started mapping things out. Fisher is down an elevator you need special access to… access. Or you can have super powers from a goddess like me. Whatever.”

“So you found the voidfish that we already knew was probably there to block everyone's memories.” Barry said, flatly. “Got it.”

“See, that's the tone of a lich that really wants to go to the Stockade.”

“Why don't I come with next time? I don't know what else to look for out here anyway.”

Taako ignored the implications that he needed a babysitter but he made a mental note to trip Barold the moment he got a living body back all the same. “Pretty sure I can swing that. When do you want to go?”

Barry shrugged, “A few days, I guess. Whenever you can sneak away from work again is fine. Oh, did I mention I saw the guys?”

“As a lich?” Taako raised an eyebrow.

“Yup.”

“How’d that go?” he smirked. He could only imagine.

“Not great. Wanted to see what they knew.”

“And?”

**

Their next opportunity came a few weeks later. They met in Barry’s cave and Taako cut a rift to the floating base but as soon as the lich attempted to float through he was stopped. He tried again, blocked by an invisible wall. And then a third time, faster this time, and found himself thrown back a few feet. He glared when Taako snorted in laughter.

“Fine, you try!”

Taako did, stepping through effortlessly and then back into the cave.

“What the fuck? Did she set up some sort of anti-lich ward around her base?”

“Oh shit, my man. She may have.”

“Taako,” Barry groaned, “Did you tell her that I was back? I know she was looking for me a while back, but… ughhhh.”

“I don’t think-... did I?” Taako tried to remember the specifics of their conversations, friendly updates and chit-chat. ‘Did I drop some off-hand comment between finding Barold in the woods and learning what a lying liar she was?’ he thought, his head swimming. ‘What else did I… did I tell her where Lup’s gauntlet was hidden?!’

“Taako,” Barry pulled the elf out of his own head. “It looks like you’re on your own again.”

“Yuuup”

“Try not to get distracted this time.”

“Sure thing, dad,” Taako narrowed his eyes wondering how much better Barry thought he would have fared exploring a floating moon base without getting caught up on something that had ruined his entire life.

**

It was easier this time. Quieter. Most of the residents of the base were at a Midsummer celebration and Taako didn’t need to worry quite as much about not being an invisible force moving something out of place. Taako wandered through the common area for just a few minutes, catching a glimpse of his friends in ridiculous costumes having what by all accounts looked like a genuinely good time and turned towards Lucretia’s office. If there was anything interesting, it would be in there.

Detecting magic only showed him Lucretia’s self-portrait hanging behind her desk. Taako frowned, last time he’d seen that it had been a painting of all of them, of his family. He took a closer look, mumbling a spell and the camouflage melted away, showing the entire group again. Taako looked over all of their faces and then returned the painting to how he had found it before moving on to a large wooden door he’d never seen behind in all of his visits here.

Taako had assumed it was Lucretia’s personal quarters and he hadn’t felt any need to see her bedroom, but if she was hiding things….

He walked through the door without opening it and cast detect magic again. ‘That’s what I wanted to see,’ he said to himself, looking at the slight glow all the way down the hall. He took note of the traps and puzzles needed to pass on safely, doodling a few pictures in a small book; taking advantage of this rare opportunity to really study how all of the traps and puzzles were supposed to be disarmed.

The hall ended in a room, not dissimilar from Barry’s cave in layout. Books and maps everywhere but in neat stacks instead of haphazard piles. Her desk had a few things Barry’s didn’t, a magic symbol of a tree especially catching Taako’s eye.

He blinked at it and then smirked. ‘So that's how you kept Barold out of here, Luce.’

Taako continued looking around until his eyes landed on the tank, like Fishers home downstairs but smaller. Much smaller.

He approached and bent over to look inside at the baby voidfish lazily poofing it’s little body around, swimming from one end to the other.

“There’s a-fucking-nother one?!”

**

The elf left the office the way he’d come, still quiet and invisible and considered joining the festivities in his favorite very-forgettable-looking-person disguise, maybe a mask to make him extra nondescript in the sea of costumes. He deserved gross carnival food, and Kravitz would make the cutest goddamn expression if he’d manage to bring home one of those giant plush dragons nobody ever won.

Taako took three steps back towards the fair, preparing his spell when the noise almost threw him off of his feet. He instinctively put his hands over his ears and looked up at the sky, quickly going black as the blasting and screaming and whispering grew ever louder and the thousands of pairs of eyes opened, searching over the base.

His eyes widened as every hypothetical scenario and unlikely fear became reality. No. No no no no no. No.

Not here.

**

“The hunger’s here,” Taako said, stepping through the rift, not greeting Barry.

“What?”

“It showed up over the moonbase, just like every other fucking time. It’s back.” Taako was pacing.

“She must be putting the pieces together then,” Barry said after a moment, despair on the edges of his voice. He hated being right.

“Fucking WHY THOUGH?!”

“I wish I knew.”

“We have to warn them. Or prepare. Or something.”

“Or we find the ship.”

Taako didn’t say anything but stopped in his tracks and looked at the lich with all of his attention.

“It comes back. We leave. Everyone is back to normal. You’re alive again. Lup is back. We try again.”

He was right, Taako knew. And Lucretia had probably kept it close. If they searched he was sure they could find it within the year but...

Taako thought of everyone who’d ever left him behind. Of every world they had to let be consumed by the hunger. And even if they did take all of the pieces of the Light with them when the left, even if the plane they left behind was by and large able to recover…. there was no going back.

He thought of the one person who had promised to never leave him in the dust and of how hard it had been to trust so far, how hard he had fought every impulse to run.

“I don’t think - I can’t do that to Kravitz, Barold.”

The lich nodded. “I understand,” and he did. He refused to even imagine leaving Lup behind if the tables had been turned. “But no matter what, that has to be plan B.”

Taako grudgingly agreed.

**

By the time Taako returned home he wanted to throw up a little less. He would plan with Barry, he would catch Kravitz up, he would call in that promise of support the Raven Queen had offered when he had been hired.

“Darling,” Kravitz said in a tone that would have made Taako nervous if he was concentrating on the plane around him in the slightest.

“Hey, Babe. We need to talk. Also I need to talk to R.Q. Also the world is ending and-”

“Taako,” he grabbed the elf’s arm. “She’s requesting an audience with you.”

“Oh.” Taako stopped. “Oh ok that’s good actually I need to talk to you both anyway-”

“No, Taako...It’s not… She knows about Barry.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

**

Kravitz hadn’t gone with Taako. He’d explained that she’d specifically asked him not to go. Taako felt his mouth dry up and Kravitz was doing a commendable job at not looking terrified for his boyfriend, but the knit of his eyebrows was giving him away.

“It will be fine,” Taako had said, putting a hand on the other reaper’s cheek before leaving again.

But it wasn’t feeling very fine right now.

The Raven Queen wore her anger like a seasoned mother, her voice quiet and sharp and using words like, “disappointed” and “expected better.”

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” she looked down at him, finally asking for his defense after an eternity of cutting accusations.

Taako considered making a quip about failing his yearly review, but immediately shut himself down. ‘Not the time, jackass.’

He considered leading with his relationship with Barry, the only real friend he had left. But that hadn’t worked on Kravitz and he had a feeling she would have even less sympathy.

“The world is ending,” he finally settled on. “And we need him.”

“Excuse me?”

Taako took a breath. “Kravitz told you about the hunger before you hired me.”

“Yes.”

“It’s back. In a year it will destroy a fuckton of shit best case scenario and will destroy this entire series of planes at worst. Barry is one of literally three people who know how to fight it. I need him.”

She looked at him for a long time and Taako knew deep down that she’d recognized the details he’d left out. How the Hunger’s return was a development months newer than Barry’s continued astral freedom. How he likely wouldn’t have brought the lich in even if the Hunger had never come back. How Kravitz had known. How the claim of Barry knowing how to deal with the threat was greatly exaggerated.

But in the end she nodded once. “I understand, Taako. Tell me what you know about this hunger. We’ll prepare and then we’ll revisit your transgressions once the threat has been vanquished.”

Taako nodded, swallowing the rock in his throat and started speaking.

He had a year.

Chapter Text

Taako returned to the house and was immediately met with hug from an incredibly worried grim reaper.

“Hey sugar cube,” he smiled, face squished up in shoulder and soft shirt fabric and a loose loc. Kravitz kissed him on the forehead, refusing to let go. “Worried, huh?”

“No,” Kravitz laughed.

“Good. ‘Cause me neither,” Taako lied.

“What did she… Was she angry?”

“Oh fuck yeah she was mad at me,” Taako made himself sound as lighthearted as possible, but this entire day was one of the worst he’d had in months and he was sure his voice was giving him away. “But I told her a bunch of stuff that I have to tell you and long story short she’s letting me get away with this crap for a year so I’d better make it worth it.”

“I don’t - what do you mean?”

Taako sighed and pulled back and told his boyfriend about his day, about the Hunger’s probes coming out of the sky, finding them. That this meant they had a year, probably almost exactly. Maybe even less. He talked about how Lucretia, on top of everything else, must have been reassembling the Light of Creation - there was no other way they could have been found now, after hiding successfully for so long.

“We need to sit down and plan and I don’t know what the fuck is going on with Lucretia, and Magnus and Merle don’t remember anything so who knows what she’s been telling them, and Davenport can’t help, and Lup is fucking gone so basically this is on me and Barry and I told R.Q. that and she agreed so everything is on hold until the Hunger is gone… or not.”

“And after we’ve dealt with it, what then?”

“I… guess Barry being a lich and my shitting on the rules will get looked at again and…” Taako didn’t want to think too hard about Barry in the Stockade or an angry Raven Queen using her celestial power to make the elf accountable for his crimes. He shrugged and smiled “But that’s a year from now and we have a lot to do before then.”

Kravitz couldn’t decide if he felt relief or crushing anxiety and dread, but he pulled his boyfriend back into his chest regardless. “We’ll figure it out,” he said quietly.

“Baaabe,” Taako said slowly. “You’re not going to like this, but I think things will be easier if me and you sit down with Barold. So we’re all on the same page.” Kravitz sighed but nodded. “I think you two will get along,” the elf tried. “You’re both giant fucking nerds. Ask him to play your piano or something.”

“He’s a musician?”

“Yeah. You’re going to love him.”

**

Barry had been annoyingly difficult to convince, but he had a right to feel dubious about meeting with someone who had months earlier tried to escort him directly to maximum security ghost jail. Taako had put his hands on his head and groaned as hard as he could after what had been much more time spent on negotiations and promises than he had planned for.

“Barold. Dude. Come ON.”

“Taako, I get it. I do. But I can't risk not being able to be here next year.”

“Ok no. Forget all of that. Pretend the world isn't about to end. If I let anything happen to you Lup would come back from fucking oblivion to end me. Ok? I swear on my good looks that my boyfriend won't touch you.”

“Boyfriend now, huh?”

“Oh my fu- I'm not ruling out the possibility of me double killing you. Can we do this?”

The lich sighed in resignation. “Yeah, T. Fine.”

“Loving the trust here, Barold. I am overwhelmed with emotion,” Taako said.

“I do trust you, Taako. It's just-”

“Don't. I know. Erm-” He pulled his stone out of his shirt and listened for a moment. “Tomorrow maybe?”

“Work?”

“Another day another soul. You know the drill. Tomorrow though Barold. I'm holding you fucking to this.”

“See you then, T.”

**

Taako was right, Barold and Kravitz got along swimmingly, which he found especially fortuitous. Last night’s mission left him emotionally drained and with no desire to play host or make a show of introductions.

“Barry, Kravitz. Kravitz, Barry,” he’d motioned between the two and let them take it from there.

“Uh, Hi,” The lich was nervous and ready to immediately get to work.

“HI! Taako tells me you’re an accomplished pianist.” Kravitz blurted, the prospect of another musician much more exciting than it probably should have been.

"Y...Yeah!"

Minutes later Kravitz was choosing an instrument as Barry practiced basic scales and warm-ups. Taako sat cross-legged in a large armchair in the corner next to a bookshelf that was stuffed with sheet music and books on musical theory and spare reeds and strings, listening to the lich who he considered family and his boyfriend who happened to be a grim reaper become fast friends.

He rested his cheek on his fist and listened as they played, Kravitz on the viola - he’d originally picked up his violin but Barry sounded sad when he vetoed the choice and it was fine, Kravitz was practiced in every instrument he owned - and Barry on the piano. Periodically they’d stop and discuss tempo and dynamics and one of them would make a joke that the other seemed to think was hilarious but made Taako roll his eyes so hard that it actually hurt.

Taako spent a long time listening to them, closing his eyes and thinking about their time in the conservatory and his time getting to know Kravitz. He tried to imagine what it would sound like if Lup was here to join them. If she would have laughed at the same nerdy jokes; if she would have liked Kravitz. Taako listened to them play for a long time and thought about the family he hadn’t been able to reconnect with and eventually silently snuck out of the room. They’d come find him when they were ready to discuss business and he suddenly just wanted to be alone.

They did find him an hour or so later with a plate of still-hot cookies and a small stack of papers, Taako scribbling and humming.

“Are you… actually doing paperwork?” Kravitz asked.

Taako looked up through his bangs, “Stop sounding shocked or I’m not sharing my cookies.

“Can you eat anything?” Kravitz turned to Barry, steering the conversation back out of choppy waters.

“Not really,” the lich shrugged. “There’s not really much to me, so no sweets while I don’t have a body.”

“What do you mean… by that?”

Taako put down his pen and leaned forward on the counter, interested to see where Barry was going with this.

He went with total honesty. “I found a way to regrow my corporeal form so I’m not always just some spooky lich floating around Neverwinter.”

“Uhh...huh,” Kravitz said, trying and failing at not openly grimacing at this very obvious violation of natural laws.

“Yeah. I don’t remember anything when I’m alive, but it’s so much harder to speak to people or collect information when I’m undead, so it’s a lose lose situation.

Kravitz looked over at Taako who shrugged, piling his paperwork up pseudo neatly and grabbing a cookie, steam escaping when he broke it in half. “I think Barold is under my ‘can get away with murder until we figure out this Hunger situation’ umbrella.”

“And after that?” Kravitz asked nervously.

“I’m really not sure, babe,” Taako took a bite “I’d say I could advocate for him as much as I can, but I’m sort of on Raven’s shit list right now, too.”

Barry nodded. “Taako explained the situation to me and to be frank, there’s a decent chance that we’ll never have an opportunity to deal with the consequences of breaking the rules so… Right now I think we’re just going to concentrate on saving the world and worry about the rest later.”

“Zzhat,” Taako pointed in Barry’s direction with a full mouth.

“So… What do you know?” Barry looked at Kravitz.

“Probably about eighty percent,” Taako answered for him. “I didn’t bother with any of the dumb technical stuff when it was just fun stories about how awesome we were and I know I haven't filled in all of the gaps since then.”

Barry nodded. “Alright then. So I’m just going to start talking and you let us know if there’s anything I’m assuming you know about.” Kravitz nodded. “The way I see it there are three possible outcomes. The worst case scenario is that we fight the Hunger and lose and that’s it. It’s over. We’re all gone.”

“What happens when The Hunger … Well, whatever it does? Takes over or kills everything.”

“We sort of don’t know for sure, my man,” Taako tapped on the counter quietly. “Planes just disappear into it though - like totally gonezo, lost forever, bye-bye, no forwarding address provided.”

“I think they get absorbed or eaten or something. Hence the name.”

“Got it,”

“Best case scenario is we fight and we win. We never have and I don’t know how we even would, but hypothetically…” The lich was quiet for a moment, already prepared for the defeat still months in the future. “And the middle-most scenario is we get the rest of the parts of the light and put them together and take it and get on the Starblaster and run.”

Taako crossed his arms. “If we take The Light, The Hunger will stop attacking these planes and follow us and you guys will get a little fucked up - but no more than a sort of bad day in the office.”

“And,” Barry added. “Everyone in our group is back to normal. Everyone remembers, you’re alive again. Lup is back.”

“That doesn’t sound like a terrible option,” Kravitz cut in. “Especially compared to the apocalypse scenario.

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Barry exclaimed.

“Yeah, but...” Taako’s expression was hard. “We don’t get to come back. If any of us goes we all do.”

“I understand,” Kravitz said.

“No… I mean. We’d never see eachother again. We’d leave and you’d be here and that would be it. Forever.”

“I understand that too.”

Taako stared at his boyfriend for a beat. Why was he the only one who thought that this was a dealbreaker?

Kravitz recognized the hurt in the elf's expression and quickly added, “I mean it’s not what I want but if it’s that or everything being erased forever-”

“Yeah,” Taako grumped. “And it’s not like the best case scenario works out for me or Barold either.”

“We don’t know that yet-” Kravits ran through every scenario where they won and the two were still ok. Where they avoided the Stockade or worse. He considered how many favors he would have to call in, how much he’d have to offer the Raven Queen.

“Even so,” Barry cut in, “I think we need to start planning how to deal with the Hunger, figure out what Lucretia has planned, how that will affect us… find the rest of the parts of the light and the Starblaster in case we do just need to abandon ship, so to speak.”

The two nodded in temporary resignation, they’d plan and worry about the messy details later.

**

In the end they had agreed that the rest of the pieces of the Light of Creation had to be found, but also that Lucretia was more than likely already working on that and had resources and knowledge and dedicated time that the trio simply didn’t. Barry had made amazing headway in his own research but he couldn’t go out and retrieve the items alone even if he knew for certain where they were, and Taako and Kravitz still had their usual work for the Raven Queen to see to, limiting the time they could devote to the search. If Lucretia’s bureau was already looking, already collecting them, then they’d all end up together near the other members of the crew and both voidfishes and most likely, the ship. And it would be better in the end if everything was in one central location. So they agreed to not worry more than they had to about the Light. They’d figure out what Lucretia’s end-game was and where the ship was and find a way to convince Magnus and Merle to trust them when they weren’t on the base. They’d quickly discussed the prospect of how to make their friends remember, but Barry had just shaken his head.

“They won’t hear anything specific we say to them. They won’t be able to. Remember when Luce was singing and I could hear it and everyone else heard it as some weird loud fuzzy sound because the song had been eaten by the voidfish in the cave? We need to figure out what made her able to remember and do it to everyone else, too. We can’t just talk to them and make them remember.”

“Great. Well how the fuck do we do that?” Taako was at the end of his emotional endurance.

“I have a few theories,” Barry replied, losing confidence like Taako was losing patience. “But I don’t know how to test them out right now… they’ll have to wait a little longer. Magnus and Merle and Davenport will have to wait a little longer.”

**

Taako hated how passive the plan was, how much waiting there was, but he agreed and committed his free time to perfecting his magic and helping Barry with spells that may possibly harm an unstoppable force and decided to just enjoy quiet moments with Kravitz while he still could. And Kravitz was thankful for those bursts of happiness in the midst of the craziness and hopelessness that he’d found himself dropped in the middle of.

The elf was bundled up, more because he liked the look than for warmth with his arm hooked around Kravitz’s elbow. His hair was braided into a series of intricate crowns that came together into one especially thick braid that he’d thrown over one shoulder, and the entire thing he somehow had managed to decorate with sparkles and very small flickering candles.

“How did you…” Kravitz had tried, seeing what his date had spent hours ‘just throwing on’ for their quiet Candlenights out in the Material Plane together.

“It’s an enchantment, babe. Do you think I’d let real fire within ten feet of this gorgeous mane?”

Kravitz laughed. The illusion was incredible and it looked even better now, hours later at dusk.

“This is nice,” Kravitz mumbled, Taako's head resting on his shoulder as they walked around a snowy garden - it was getting dark and so cold that every living citizen of the Material Plane had long since retreated indoors to the comfort of fireplaces and a big, warm meals, leaving the two with comfortable privacy.

“Mmm” Taako hummed in response. It was far from their first Candlenights together, but it was the first they’d spent together while openly admitting to be romantically involved and he meant to make it count. Every year prior to this had been fun and lighthearted, Taako cooked a ridiculous holiday spread and they drank too much wine and laughed about their year and fooled around in the couch. But this year the wizard wanted to be special. He wanted it to be special before he’d realized that one way or another everything was flying at full speed into a brick wall, but now he felt a desperate need to make this absolutely perfect.

And it had been.

Their holiday had been quiet and romantic and accompanied by soft flickering lights and festive music, and with the evening coming to a close Taako noticed more and more the small package in his pocket. He’d put a lot of thought into what to get the reaper this year and he worried that it wouldn’t be well received, that he’d over-thought it and that Kravitz wouldn’t like it as much as he’d hoped.

But the night was ending and neither had moved to exchange presents and Taako was allowing uncertainty to get the better of him until a familiar buzz pulled him out of his own head.

“Ugh. What do they want now?” Taako only half joked as Kravitz pulled out his stone of farspeech and held it where they could both hear.

“There’s been a...um…. A problem at the Stockade,” the voice leaked out nervously.

Kravitz knew the voice belonged to a guard but could not remember what their face looked like… He’d met all of the guards so many times and this one was...um...shit.

“What kinda problem, boychik?” Taako said when Kravitz didn’t. “A this-can-wait-until-tomorrow sort of issue? Or more of an oh-fuck-definitely-disrupt-your-entire-holiday kinda disaster?”

“The latter,” Ray - that was it, Ray! - whined back. “There’s sort of been a ...breakout…?”

“I’msorrywhat?”

**

They went to the Stockade immediately to start figuring out what had gone wrong. Kravitz made an extra effort to attempt to comfort the guards while Taako followed him around with his best ‘Yikes’ face and periodically made commentary under his breath about how ‘someone had fuuuuucked uuup.’ Ray always heard, Taako made sure he always heard.

“It wasn’t any of our people’s fault,” Kravitz said when they were on their way out of the Stockade, beginning to form a plan. “It looks like someone in here had help from someone on the Material Plane and basically this is a huge disaster.”

“Yup.”

“So… you probably didn’t have to mess with the guards.”

He shrugged, “Just fucking around.” Taako was grumpy. His perfect fucking holiday was ended very abruptly by some ghosts who couldn’t wait one day to escape? He wasn’t dressed for this, he hadn’t even brought his black cloak with him.

And Kravitz seemed to pick up on this completely. “Why don’t you stick around here and help get things put back together, grab your cloak, meet me at the location in a bit.”

The elf raised an eyebrow at his date, “You don’t want help with an a bunch of ghost-jail escapees?”

“I mean, I will. But I’ll go figure out the situation and lay down some groundwork and we’ll figure out the end-game together. I’ll definitely want you there before I try to herd them back to the Astral Plane.”

Taako shrugged, “Fine by me if that’s how you want to play this one, Bone Daddy.”

“Don’t… Love, don’t call me that.”

Taako was already gone.

**

Kravitz had started working the job - he really truly, had - but then he’d opened his book to look up the still-living scientist who seemed to be at the middle of all of this, see which of the dead he could have been related to or known or otherwise had a reason to try to bring back and he stumbled upon pictures and bounties. Bounties on people who were close by, and had hefty prices hovering over them, and had avoided the Astral Plane for an absurdly long time. How? How had they never been taken in before?! Was everyone he worked with incompetent or had these people really just managed to fly under the radar all this time?

He frowned at the book, flipping back and forth in the pages a bit. Well, they were alive and didn’t seem to have caused any obvious trouble in a while, that must have helped them fly unseen for so long, but now that they’d been noticed…

Kravitz looked back at the two, committing their faces to memory and not bothering with their names, he’d get to that after he’d actually found them. Taking in bounties this large, bounties who had managed to avoid the laws of the Raven Queen for this long on top of dealing with the Stockade escape? That would earn brownie points with his goddess. That may even help convince her to show Taako and Barry at least a little bit of leniency.

Chapter Text

Magnus and Merle weren’t doing great. They weren’t dead yet, and that gave them a definitive leg up on what’s-his-face with the cigar from the other group, but... Merle was down an arm and hadn’t quite gotten a hang of the new one yet, they’d sat through a presentation on science and insanity with someone they were definitely going to kill, that creepy floating robe had come back, and oh yeah, they were going to absolutely fucking murder Lucas.

Magnus had loudly let him know as much after he’d barely dodged Carey and Killian’s attacks to escape.

And to add insult to literal injury, that pink golem was back.

“Well it looks like you two aren’t on the naughty list, so it uh… looks like it’s just the two of you on a one way trip back to the Astral Plane. Oh, hold on.. Make that the three of you.”

Magnus had attempted to reason with the monster, and then to argue, but within a minute the room had erupted into fighting. “THANK PAN this thing is so completely inept,” Merle had muttered, as the golem failed to hit a stationary target. Then it started breaking parts of itself off and exploding them and Carey and Killian looked like they may be down and -

“Um… babe?”

A very overdressed elf stepped out of a rift just behind the golem with crossed arms and a parasol hanging off of his left arm at the elbow.

“You’re just in time!” the golem said and the elf stopped for a moment and then laughed so loud that what was left of the fighting in the room stopped with a suddenness that practically gave Magnus whiplash.

“OK first of all, what is that accent?”

Merel and Magnus eyed each other in confusion. ‘What the hell is going on?’ the dwarf mouthed to his companion who shrugged with his arms.

“Second,” the elf continued without waiting for an explanation, “You look like you’re made of salt and I can’t decide if I want to make a joke about you being salty or being rock hard.”

If crystal could blush the golem would have turned from pink to bright red by this point, but instead he mumbled, “Taako, dear, this is the opposite of helpful. This is a job…”

“Yeah… unfortunately that brings me to number three…. You can’t take those two to the Astral Plane.” Taako motioned at Magnus and Merle with his thumb.

“W… why? Have you seen their bounties, they’re-”

“Probably about where mine was. Maybe a little higher, right? Did you happen to take a look at their names?”

The golem thought about this for a moment and then seemed to shrink a inch. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. Fuck.”

“Yeah… Sorry, babe.”

“OK what the heck is going on?!” Merle finally interjected, waving his arms in the air.

Taako’s attention snapped to his friends with a grin, “Merle. My dude. What the hell happened to your arm?”

“Magnus freakin’ cut it off!”

“It was turning to crystal!”

Taako looked back at Kravitz accusingly as he stepped out of the golem, leaving it a pile of pink rock, and sweeping of his suit with the side of his hands. “Yeah, sorry about that. If it’s any consolation that would have come back pretty much as soon as you came to the Astral Plane”

It didn’t seem to be much of a consolation at all to Merle, judging by his expression, but he said nothing.

“So… who are you dudes?” Taako looked at the rest of the people in the room. He’d been focusing on the two he knew but there were three others - or two and a soul in a robot and that felt like a work thing they’d have to deal with later. The dragonborn woman had spoken most recently but there was also an orc woman next to her and it seemed like they were working hard to defend his friends and that made them official good good people in Taako’s book.

“I’m Taako, this handsome guy is Kravitz. We’re-”

“Agents of the Raven Queen,” Kravitz interrupted.

At least half of the room looked confused. “Grim reapers,” Taako clarified. “We collect people who try to like, cheat death.”

“Okay…” Magnus said after a moment. “So… I guess I get why you’re interested in Noelle, but what do you want with us?” he motioned between himself and Merle.

“Krav, you want to run through the official stuff? That BS is your jam.”

Kravitz sighed and made his book appear.

“Mangus,” he said. “You’re wanted by the Raven Queen because you’ve died nineteen times.”

“What?”

“Nineteen.”

“WHAT?!”

“Nine. Teen.”

“Keep your pants on,” Taako said, “It gets better.”

“Merle,” Kravitz flipped through pages and then turned to his boyfriend, “I see it now, by the way, that I’m looking at their names and what their bounties are for.”

Taako clicked his tongue and shot a finger gun at the other reaper.

“Merle. You’ve died fifty... seven times, holy crap is this accurate?”

Taako looked up thoughtfully for a sec, “Ummmm yeah, that sounds right.”

“You left this detail out, Love.”

“Honestly I thought it was implied given my whole thing.”

Magnus looked back and forth between Taako and Kravitz. “Wait. Wait wait wait no. We’ve - well I’ve never died. I don’t know about - Merle have you died?”

“Um… no? Wait, are you spelling it d-y-e-d?”

Magnus ignored the question. “Yeah, we’ve never died.”

“I promise you you have, my man,” Taako said, “You just don’t remember.”

“How is that possible?”

“I mean…” Taako looked over at Kravitz. They still had a break-out to deal with and there was no way the guys could believe him even if they could hear what he had to say. “I kinda can’t explain it to you right now.”

“Well why don’t you give it a try?” Merle said a little sardonically and Taako smiled. Goddamn did he miss these jerks.

“Fine,” the elf said with a shrug. And he did. He explained as briefly as possible that they’d all died, Taako included, died a number of times while traveling between the Planes on the Starblaster over the course of a hundred years.

What they heard was a mess of jarring static and periodic random words. The boys frowned and looked at each other shaking their heads.

“Couldn’t understand me?”

“...No.”

“Yeah, like I said. How about you guys?” he called over to the dragonborn, the orc and the robot. Anything?”

Carey and Killian shook their heads but Noelle quietly chirped, “I understood you.”

“That makes sense.” Kravitz said.

“Why can you hear and we can’t?” Magnus asked.

“We’re dead and or work for a goddess.”

“I work for a God,” Merle argued defensively.

“Yeah… We’re a little more directly employed- Look, can we back to business?” Kravitz realized he was rapidly losing more and more control of the situation.

“Mmm” Taako agreed. “We can pick this back up later - we’re here for some ghosts that broke out of ghost jail. I’m guessing it’s that guy’s fault?” He motioned at the room Lucas had walled himself up in and his friends mumbled in verification. “Great. So… what are you all doing in this pink hellscape?”

“We’re after the Philosopher’s Stone,” Merle said as Killian tried to say that the strangers didn’t need to know.”

“The stone is here?” Taako pointed at the floor in momentary shock. “I guess that would made sense. How about we combine our powers then? You help us stop any more ghosts from escaping the Astral Plane thanks to that idiot and we’ll make sure you get the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“Why are you so keen to help us?” Carey asked.

Taako shrugged. “I know what it is and where it’s from and know it shouldn’t be out in the world anymore,” he half lied. They didn’t need to know the details yet. And helping them was a very convenient first step in getting his friends to trust him again.

The five met in a huddle up to discuss the proposal when Carey noticed a crack in Killian’s helmet and after a few moments of fussing and hushed chatting the group had come to an agreement. The dragonborn departed with a few extra judging glances at the reapers and the rest seemingly tentatively remained.

“Ok, we’ll work with you. But you can’t take us to the Astral Plane,” Magnus said.

“Deal,” Taako agreed before Kravitz could get a word in.

“Um…” Kravitz started.

“Any of us,” Magnus emphasized.

“Yeah, natch,” Taako shrugged.

“Taako, a word?”

The elf held up one finger and turned to his partner, “Yes, Babe?”

“I understand letting your friends off the hook - but the other one was in the Astral Plane already and escaped. She’s entirely other situation,” he said quietly, looking over at the other a little.

“Krav, look at her. She’s not going to be any trouble.”

“Why are you so insistent on getting yourself in hotter and hotter water?”

Taako sighed and pulled Kravitz a little farther from the group, keeping his voice low, “The stone was what I made. If I can help them get it off the table…. What do you suggest?”

“Ok- slight amendment to the deal,” Kravitz suddenly looked at the group. “You help us out and you two are definitely in the clear. You though,” he looked at Noelle, “We’ll rediscuss when this is done. We can’t go back completely empty handed but you’re not who I was here to find so…”

The four looked amongst themselves and Magnus shrugged. “Fine.” He was pretty sure he could stop them from taking his new friend by force if he really had to.

“Well,” Taako said, “You all lead the way. I have a feeling our escapee is balls deep in your stone so you’re stuck with us for a little while.”

“Ok. Ok, no. One more question,” Merle added quickly. “Are you with those ‘red robes?’”

“They’re not wearing the uniform. We’re not supposed to watch out for people in black cloaks.”

“Still!”

Kravitz leaned towards Taako and whispered, “Are they referring to-”

“Yeah, I think so,” the elf responded quietly. “Do you mean that one lich in the red robe?”

“Yeah him! See, I told you so, Mags. Are you with him?” said Merle.

“Sort of. We’re all on the same side. Why?” Taako wasn’t sure what to tell them. Clearly they’d been told something.

“He’s super weird and cryptic!” Magnus said, “And we were told not to trust him.”

Taako laughed. “He’s a good dude, I promise. He’s- wait, how cryptic? Was he being all dramatic because I’ll make fun of him.”

“Very.”

“Look, my dudes.” Taako sighed. “Unfortunately that spooky nerd is also on the list of things that I cannot explain yet, but he’s good people. Dorky and extra, but good.”

The reapers let their new acquaintances lead the way and Kravitz noticed immediately how comfortable Taako looked around the other two men - how quickly he was able to fall into a friendly back-and-forth with them. How he’d anticipate their jokes and actions and have the next lined up.

When three ghosts in robotic bodies appeared, demanding a fight and seeming way more familiar with the two than Taako expected, Magnus noticed how quickly the elf jumped into the fight, balancing their fighting techniques with his magic seamlessly - as if they’d practiced this countless times before.

Magnus cast a final blow and Taako followed up with a simple trapping spell. Kravitz caught the orbs that held their souls before the umbrastaff could consume them and stored the ghosts away to be returned to the Stockade later.

“We make a good team!” the dwarf grinned.

“Hell yeah,” Taako replied with a thumbs up.

They didn’t notice Noelle’s sudden sullen electronic-body language or Magnus approaching the robot to comfort her until he loudly cleared his throat to get their attention.

“Why don’t you ask them?” Magnus pointed at Taako and Kravitz. “They’re sort of the resident experts, right?”

“Uh… Yeah. What’s up?” Kravitz stuttered. He had resigned himself to taking a backseat on this expedition until his escaped souls turned up. Being called for wasn’t something he had anticipated.

“I think she’s bummed about being dead and in a robot body now?” Magnus tried.

Noelle told them about her life - remembering her death, Phandalin... Barry. Taako crossed his arms and eyed Kravitz nervously as Magnus and Merle danced around the story, both denying knowing anything about Phandalin and showing a clear understanding of exactly what had happened.

Taako understood. He understood sorrow over dying- even after finding out first hand that it wasn’t necessarily the end, not really. He understood worrying about the people who were still left breathing and not knowing how to move forward. Taako had lucked out. He knew that he had fallen into the astral jackpot, but he could just as easily have found himself playing the waiting game in the Astral Plane or wandering around the Material Plane completely unseen and unheard, waiting to be noticed.

“Phandalin - What happened to Phandalin sucked,” he finally said. “It was a world-class boner and I fucking hated that day at work. And honestly, man, dying sucked too. I haven’t been at this for that long, I only kicked the bucket a few years ago and I’m only able to come back to this plane now because this one thought I was cute and petitioned to keep me around.”

“That’s not quite-” Kravitz tried, but Taako kept talking.

“But you’re here now - which my employer wants me to say isn’t ideal, but since you are for at least a little while and you’ve found yourself a shiny new body - get back to kicking asses.”

“I didn’t really…. I didn’t kick many asses when I was alive.”

“Seems like a good time to start then, huh?”

“Noelle,” Magnus took a turn, “Merle and I are trying to stop what happened to Phandalin from happening anywhere else. You can help us.”

“We can sort of use all the help we can get,” Merle added.

“You can’t stay here forever,” Taako said with a shrug. “But while Krav and I are looking the other way, you can be a hero.”

The robot floated in place for a moment and then seemed to nod as much as its form could, “Let’s fuck ‘em up.”

**

The room that Lucas had fled to reminded Taako of the Starblaster under a layer of crystal, and as soon as the group saw the scientist, Magnus and Kravitz approached him with the combined sizable intimidation that a giant man and a man-turned skeleton. Lucas broke down imediatly, letting his life story spill in an attempt to earn sympathy and understanding. He described his mother and her brilliance and what he had invented to get her back.

And the part of Taako that had genuinely enjoyed his time studying and preparing to join the IPRE, that had spent long hours listening to Lup and Barry prattle on about science and life and death would have been impressed by the siphon’s invention and ability to pull the dead back into the world of the living but...

Taako couldn’t take his eyes off of the Philosopher’s Stone across the room, in the hand of a robot covered in a thick shell of crystal. It had been at the center of this - of course it had been at the center of this - and Taako suddenly understood why Lup had gone so far out of her way to seal her gauntlet away - why Lucretia had first made sure to find her own staff. He needed to get it back, neutralize it.

“Your mother was in prison, Lucas. You can’t break people out of prison!” Taako smirked at his boyfriend’s attempt to be diplomatic, even now, and took a few steps closer to the robot with the stone. There wasn’t a way to retrieve it without breaking the barrier and he wasn’t sure how to do that but…

The creepy lullabye started again, but a slight glow from the robot’s other hand caught Taako’s eye. He followed the light to the mirror and, “Oh crap, Krav! Lookit this!” As the song ended, the light erupted through the mirror and Taako took an automatic step back in anticipation. “Shit. Can you turn this off?”

“I don’t… I don’t know how.” Lucas whimpered moments before a giant humanesque form of escaped souls came through the circular portal into the laboratory.

“See this is why you don’t mess with necromancy!” Kravitz was just a little below a yell, motioning at the writhing mass of ghosts with one hand, scythe in the other.

“I know I’m sorry I won’t again I promise I’m sorry,” Lucas rambled through a whine.

When the legion of ghosts asked the support of the mortals in the room Taako took the rest of the room in, analyzed where everything was - everyone. No. He needed the stone neutralized and the siphon to stop facilitating any more of the dead from coming to this plane. The others could take care of the fight - Carry and Noelle were more than capable on their own and with Kravitz, Magnus and Merle would have more than enough help.

As Magnus tried to sneak closer to the mirror, Taako took another step back, closer to the robot that apparently held Lucas’s mother; when the legion smashed down he cast a quiet shattering spell on the crystal.

“Hey - good to meet you sort of I-” Taako tried to introduce himself when the robot with the stone seemed free and conscious enough to hear but it began shuttering almost immediately, seeming to be pulled in every direction at once. “Goddamnit.” He didn’t have time for this. The fight was beginning to take up the entire room and it would only take so long before Taako would have to join. “Listen, hey. Hey over here.” She doubled over and - shit is somebody throwing the dragonborn lady that’s rad as hell - lights almost fell out of her and - oops.

Taako cast a silence spell on her just as the word, “GET” came out of her voice box and he waved while hissing, “Hey goddamnit down here.”

She turned to him.

“I’m going to undo that spell ok? So you can talk? But can you keep it down I’m trying to not draw attention to us.” She nodded and he removed the charm. “Great. Hi. Maureen, right? I’m Taako, from TV, charmed, and I’m going to need to take both of those things you’re holding.”

“What? Why?”

“Ummmm so we can make this fucking insanity stop? And look, I’m going to level with you, I’m sort of responsible for that stone so if I could make it stop ruining everything forever that would be really a friggen aces day in my book. Kapish?”

“You… Your friends attacked my son.”

“Ok first of all, I’m not responsible for what any of those idiots do. Second, have you seen what’s happening right now? He sort of deserves to get smacked around a little. Like,” Taako took another look around the room,” Ok so whatever Merle just summoned is rad as hell, but the rest of this is a disaster. You can’t deny your boy sort of screwed the pooch on this one.”

She sighed as much as a robot could and handed him the stone and the disk. Taako squirreled them away accordingly as Magnus shattered the mirror, “Um are you GOING TO HELP?!” he shouted at Taako.

“UMMMM I AM HELPING!” Taako motioned at Maureen with both arms as Lucas was thrown across the room and landed, with an unceremonious thump, quiet and small. “Oh shit,” was all he managed as she tore away from where she has been, screaming.

Taako readied his umbrella for a strike but Merle beat him to the punch as the legion of ghosts was suddenly vanquished from the plan of the living with a rumbling, “NO.”

And just like that the fight was done.

Taako looked over to Kravitz who’s humanesque face was coming back, all impressed shock. The elf felt weird about celebrating with the group, but also about not joining. This wasn’t his crew. Not anymore. Not really.

He frowned when Lucretia’s voice broke through the stone of farspeech, really driving home the how this wasn’t his team anymore. It was hers.

“Are you in possession of the Philosopher's Stone?” she asked. And Magnus stammered a little.

“Yes. Well sort of. Not not yet but it’s-”

“Right here,” Taako threw him the stone, pouch he’d kept it in and all.

“Yes!”

“All right, very good. Don’t do anything stupid with it and come back right away. But be careful, it’s snowy out there.”

Their conversation ended, and while Merle was healing the barely stable scientist, Kravitz cleared his throat. “So… as far as who has to come back where and who’s broken what rules…” he glanced at Taako, who seemed distracted, far away. “A deal’s a deal. Noelle, you finish… whatever it is you have going on. But you can’t stay here forever - you know that right?”

“And you, nerd-lord. Can we agree your necromancy days are behind you?” Lucas nodded weakly. “Great, so that’s settled,” Taako said, ignoring a hard look from Kravitz. “And Maureen-” he started.

“I’ll go,” she interrupted.

Kravitz nodded and waited for her to speak to her son as Taako pulled Magnus and Merle aside.

“So,” the elf started, “We made a good team and I have a lot of shit to explain to you guys. Eventually, not now, but eventually. But this was fun - working together again that is - so if you want help getting the rest of these things for Lucretia, we can hook up for a round two.”

“Again?” Merle’s eyebrows moved towards each other.

“How do you know about all of that - about the relics?” Magnus added.

Taako took a long inhale. “Again, in that we’ve met before. It’s just still static for you. And I know Lucretia.”

“How?!” Magnus demanded.

“S’all static, my man. Maybe next time,” Kravitz was waving at him now. “Ok I need to get back to the other side, probably to do like hours of paperwork and get yelled at by the higher-ups again. But next time, yeah?”

“One more thing. Can you - if you’re from the astral plane - can you tell Julia I love her?”

Taako blinked. He knew he shouldn’t be shocked but here he was… “Hell yeah, my man. Anything else? Merle? Any long-lost anything you want me to say hi to? No? Cool. Mags, tell you what, I’ll do you one better. Next time you see me, bring letters or whatever. I’ll make sure they get to her.”

**

Kravitz and Taako stepped through the rift together after returning to the Astral Plane and finishing clean-up at the Stockade. Finally everyone - well, almost everyone - was back in their correct plane of existence and every part of Legion was securely locked away. Kravitz moved around a few things in his book and promised Maureen that he’s revisit how much time she’d have to spend at the Stockade soon. Sure, she’d more or less helped kickstart this entire mess, but she’d also helped put everything back the way it should be and had been the only bounty to agree to return to the Astral Plane.

She’d been the only bounty he’d sought up to collect to come back at all. This hadn’t been the most successful day of work.

Kravitz glanced over at Taako, grinning and jotting down notes, adding commentary that he didn’t seem to notice nobody was listening to. The lef looked elated. As if the job hasn’t gone south at all. As if his holiday hadn’t been ruined even a little. Kravitz felt a smile lazily lift his features a little, watching his boyfriend’s unironic display of genuine happiness and made a mental note to keep an extra eye on his friends.

“Hey,” he called over to the elf. “Do you wanna go home? I think they’re way past good over here and we never exchanged presents.”

“Hell yeah!”

**

Taako sat on the couch pulling braids and the small stones he’d enchanted to look like light out of his hair, piling everything up on the closest table as Kravitz carried over a very large box, placed, almost dropped, it on the floor by the sofa and then pulled a much smaller box out of his vest pocket and placed it on top before sitting down. Taako eyed the boxes, brushing his hair out. “Which am I supposed to open first?”

“Up to you,” Kravitz shrugged. “I mean the top one isn’t a surprise or anything.”

It wasn’t. He’d added earrings or cuffs to his present every year after he’d noticed Taako’s ridiculous collection of jewelry. It ranged from costume to legitimately nice pieces as they had become closer, but without fail there had been earrings. Taako loved every single pair and this year was no exception. Small but dangly black and red crystals, a tongue in cheek attempt at adding more black to his wardrobe. Taako put them on immediately before reaching for the larger box and pulling off the paper.

“Oh shit!” he yelled, putting himself on the floor with the box when he saw what was inside. It was brand new cookware. A full set suitable for a professional kitchen, shiny and dark and perfect. Nothing they’d had before was bad or out of repair, but none of it was nice either and Taako hadn’t cooked with anything non-stick or suitable to move from the stove to the oven since he’d had his show and this was…

“Are they ok? I wasn’t completely sure what I was looking at the whole time so-”

“NO THESE ARE PERFECT!” Taako excitedly pulled every piece out one by one to look at and admire and stack neatly before moving onto the next one. “Seriously I love this thank you!” his words ran together.

After a few minutes he put everything back in the box as neatly as he could - nothing ever fit the way it did when you took it out - and got back into his seat and plucked a small pouch out of one of his many layers and tossing it underhand to the other side of the couch.

“Look,” he sounded nervous, “Before you open it it’s not as big as it’s going to look so let me explain but we both know you’re way better at present giving than I am so I hope you like it. Or whatever.”

Kravitz blinked. He never thought of himself as better as picking out presents - Taako was just so unbelievably easy to shop for. In fact, in light of everything else he was afraid this year had come across as impersonal or exceedingly hopeful that the elf would even be here in a years time. He tugged the drawstring and pulled out a simple dark ring - no, it was engraved with little ravens and stars that shifted lazily from pink to blue and back. “Taako, I-”

“Like I said,” he cut Kravitz off. “It’s not that because that would be insane but I thought that I might not even be here next year and it’s something for you to remember me by maybe - I mean so you don’t forget about me or anything - and it doesn’t have to be a RING ring like i designed it to change size on its own so you it can be a hair thing or, y’know, up to you.”

“Taako…” he didn’t know what the words he was trying to form were. “It’s honestly perfect, I - wait you made this?”

“Yeah, man. Transmutation is sort of my entire deal. I’m not great at art so the pretty stuff was hard, but y’know, the main part wasn’t too...”

He slid the ring onto his right middle finger and was impressed when it did immediately shift to fit perfectly, the engraving glowing a little brighter now. He reached over and pulled the elf towards him. “I love it.”

“Good!”

They stayed like that for a few minutes, quiet and comfortable. “Taako,” Kravitz broke the silence. “I don’t think I could ever forget about you.”

“Yeah, well. I didn’t think I’d ever forget about my sister, either. But shit happens.”

“That’s different though,”

Taako shrugged, still wrapped up in his boyfriend’s arms. “I guess. But I figured like… Ok so even though I’d forgotten there were still times when I’d be reminded of her sort of or remember her almost. Like just certain shirts or hairstyles or conversations or whatever and I’d get the craziest deja vu, which was in retrospect I guess just me almost remembering that I had a fucking sister. So if I do get pulled out of here and you do want to remember me…” Taako shrugged again, not finishing his sentence. “Not that I’m planning on going fucking anywhere. The goal is still beating that stupid thing.”

**

Lucretia had the stone back in her possession and that should have been all that mattered, but what the boys had told her about their mission... Who they’d lost…

Who they’d met.

She’d considered immediately telling them to avoid Taako at all costs like she’d said about the Red Robes. But he’d helped them, he didn’t question or keep the Philosopher’s Stone from her, and Taako had more reason than anyone to not want to see that in anyone’s hands but his own. And they probably wouldn’t listen if she did tell them to avoid him, anyway. She sighed. She’d taken precautions against him coming to the base, at least.

When Taako’s voice came through her stone of farspeech Lucretia was surprised. She didn’t expect to ever speak to him again, definitely not by his choice.

“Really, Luce? Necromancy?” he said, no other greeting.

“Hello, Taako. How have you been?”

“You know like… how illegal anti-death wards are, right? And what my job is? And how much not my favorite person you already were?”

“How can I help you, Taako?”

“Smart money says the guys told you they saw me?”

“Yes.”

“Cool. Great. So you’re putting it back together?”

“Yes.” Lucretia said again and Taako didn’t bother asking why or what her plan was. He knew her too well for that.

“Ok. Where’s the ship, Lucretia?”

She didn’t answer for a moment and Taako sighed.

“We’re working on a plan A and I’m guessing you have a plan A, but we need plan B. Where’s the ship?”

Chapter Text

“I mean, should we call him?” Merle asked trying on a pair of jodhpurs. “He was helpful with the whole crystal thing and he seems to know stuff.”

“Yeah… maybe.” Magnus crossed his arms. “Kind of an asshole, though.”

Merle gave him a look. “Yeah, so he fits in perfectly.”

**

They did call Taako as they flew over Phandalin. “Oh, Hell yeah my fellas. Where should I meet you? I can be there in five seconds.”

“Um.. the gorge or the gulch or something. Shit Magnus, what did the director call it? Damnit put down that fish for three seconds.”

Taako stared at his stone. He’d missed these idiots, he’d really, really missed them. But sometimes they were the worst. “Which - what are you guys calling them? Relics? Which one are you going for?”

“The Chalice,”

When had they given it a fancy name? Magnus had called that thing the ‘Time Cup’ since day one and wasn’t it just like fucking Lucretia to change things to sound more flowery and fancy. “Yeah, I know where that is. I’ll see you in a -”

“Oh crap the break!” and then the line went silent.

‘Well,’ Taako told himself. ‘If they just got themselves killed I’ll see them in a hot sec anyway… so…’

They hadn’t gotten themselves killed, somehow, and as Taako stepped out of his rift they were staggering out of their glass sphere, a track of gouged earth showing where they’d rolled to a stop.

Taako applauded as loudly and sarcastically as he could. “Aaahhhhhhmazing. Is this how you always travel?”

“Yes!” Merle was clutching a fish in a sphere and laughing.

“How did you get here so fast?” Merle asked.

“Reaper powers, babe. I can make doorways through planes and stuff, it’s very cool. You’re jealous.”

“I kinda am.”

“Um…” Avi was there. He’d apparently been there the entire time. “Who’s this?”

“Consultant,” Magnus said.

“Specialist,” Merle said.

“Taako, y’know, from TV” Taako rounded them out. Avi still looked confused. “Ok, my dude, here’s the four one one. I’m helping out’cha boys on this particular adventure. Lucretia - what do you guys call her?” he looked back at his almost-friends. “Right, The Director - knows who I am so feel free to let her know I’ve gone on in with them. Capish?”

“Ah… Sure. I guess,” Ari stammered at the newcomer in almost scandalously short shorts, a high pony tail and almost comically large sunglasses. He didn’t seem like the kind of consultant the Director would hire… but neither did Merle or Magnus and now they were with the bureau full time, and Lucas had fit the bill and… well look how that went. “So you three are going in there,” he pointed at the dome. “By being shot into it with this,” he pointed at a very large cannon. “At like… 800 miles per hour.”

“Yikes,” Taako pushed his glasses down a little to look over them. “Or maybe I can just… I dunno, reaper us in?”

“I mean sure if you want to try to be fancy and shit.”

Taako tried but silvery light pushed back at him before he could take a single step forward and the rift closed itself with an angry whoosh.

“Y’know what? Never mind, let’s take a look at your cannon.”

Merel pointed out the ground moving towards them and the four watched curiously as the shifting earth split in its path.They took a moment to consider how strange this was and what could have been causing the shift, and somehow everyone was surprised when three giant worms erupted from the ground and circled them. Ari hid, but the fight lasted only a few minutes total before they retreated, scared it seemed… maybe confused.

“They're supposed to be like… the size of a bunch of trains all bundled up together,” Ari eventually said, after they’d gone a safe distance away.

“Were those baby purple worms?!”

“This is all very thrilling but can we heal up and get going?” Taako tapped his foot. The rifts weren’t working for him and the fight against literal baby worms had been just shy of embarrassing and could the show just get on the road already?

“Uh… yeah,” Avi muttered, still dubious about the newcomer elf.

Minutes later they were loaded, Avi making his final calculations before shot off and Magnus turned to Taako, “Hey.”

“Yeah, my man?”

“Thanks for helping us out with this one. Again.”

Before he could reply the sphere took off like a bolt of lightning, fast and loud and jarring and then suddenly gone.

Taako looked around the white space in confusion, it was so familiar. This was exactly what death was like - what it was supposed to be like when people didn’t resist or accidently miss the boat - before the Astral Plane came into focus. But even if Avi had miscalculated and Merle and Magnus had just been shot into a wall and died… Taako knew he shouldn’t be here. This was wrong.

“It’s you!” Taako spun to see the old woman he hadn’t noticed before and the chalice - Magnus’s stupid chalice. “Find me.”

And then she was gone.

**

The first attempt through refuge Taako decided to let the boys take the reins on this mission. Finding the relics was their job, technically. Taako was just there to help and maybe spend some time with his oldest friends while they were at it. And how badly could it go? They’d managed to get three of their creations already, this would be easy. A fun bonding day with his best buddies before it became imperative that they trusted him completely when they would want to feel most dubious about it. Nothing makes people want to trust a freaking-out grim reaper like being forced to because the world is literally ending.

Taako brushed off the idea that maybe he was feeling a little paranoid and manic. This was fine. Everything about this was fine. The fact that they may have just died but also maybe not and were within ten feet of the chalice and now aren’t and also are for some reason in a jail… This was all fine. Totally, completely, A-Ok, according to plan, fine.

But at least the other person here with them was vaguely amusing, and the statue outside hadn’t gotten past Taako’s notice. Magnus didn’t seem to recognize himself, and why would he have? It was mostly featureless and Mags would never think to see himself as one of the red robes, but Taako took one look and grinned. His friend had come here and been immortalized as a statue. Of course he had, everyone like Magnus. He had that certain charm that small towns loved.

Their newly made jail friend continued yammering away for quite a few more minutes, encouraged by Magnus, and while it didn’t feel to Taako like she had the best information, she sure was amusing and they’d been here for less than an hour, they had plenty of time to get out of here, find the chalice and get back out again.

The earthquake threw Taako for a loop. It surprised everyone, locals included, and as Roswell and Cassidy rushed away to help and broke out of jail respectively Magnus insisted they leave, too. They needed to help.

“Sure,” Taako shrugged. “We could have gotten out of here whenever you wanted, my man,” as he unlocked the cell with a flick of the umbrastaff. “I don’t know what you’re going to do to stop an earthquake, though.”

But Magnus was already gone, leaving the other two to trail behind. By the time they caught up with him it was impossible to get the man’s attention. Something else had exploded and a bank was on fire and some people were dead now and Taako felt his stomach drop. This wasn’t supposed to be a work thing, there weren’t supposed to be deaths and damage on this level and Magnus - shit, Mags was already running into the burning fucking building and Taako ran in after him with a “Can you at least stay put?!” to Merle. His friends weren’t supposed to get killed. It was literally all he could do to just make sure that they lived long enough to collect all of the relics and fight the hunger and they were insisting on getting themselves thrown into jail and running into burning fucking buildings?! Shit!

As Taako entered the building Magnus was doing his best to pull people who had actually survived out, but there were so many who had already died or who were just about to - there were just some things there was no walking away from, the small professional part of Taako’s mind reminded him, and as he stepped back out he picked up his stone to call Kravitz. This was fucking awful and maybe he didn’t need to be involved with their main mission, but he’d have to at least know about all of the death and destruction.

“I’ll be right there,” Kravitz answered almost immediately, and then, “I can’t get to you.”

“Fuck.”

“I know, right?” Merle said, healing a coughing dwarf woman.

“No,” Taako said, glowering at his stone. “This is even more extra bad. OK babe, I think some super wonky shit is going on over here. Can you keep half an eye on like… this entire town in the book for the next few hours?”

“Yeah… Why? What’s going on?”

“I’m not totally su- shit. I gotta go.” and Taako cast a spell at the ground in front of Magnus, rushing for the burning bank again. “CAN YOU NOT?” he yelled as the human tripped. “I’d really appreciate it if you guys didn’t die literally right in front of me. Y’know?! It will be so much harder to play dumb to the boss later.”

“They need our help!” Magnus argued as the bank began to fall in on itself.

“You’re fucking welcome.”

“Roswell was still in there!”

“Ok!”

“How don’t you care?!”

“I fucking do care, dipshit, but I’m being realistic and getting yourself fucking killed doesn’t help anyone so maybe take it the fuck down a notch.”

“Um… guys?” Merle pointed at the clock tower burning as it began to chime for noon. “We’re trapped in here with all this, right? We can’t get out of the bubble.”

“Yeah,” Taako agreed, trying to remember exactly how the chalice worked - if it could be causing this much destruction. But no, it didn’t seem like its usual M.O. “I think that sounds about right.”

As the clock struck its final chord the tremors began again and the clock tower fell and the ground opened and Taako felt himself screaming before he was consciously aware that he was. He hadn’t feared anything like this in years, but locked in a bubble, separated from his people, trapped with nothing but fire and death. This was uncharted territory. What had Magnus made?! How was it doing this?

Taako knew what dieing felt like. He’d felt is so many times before. He’d become intimately familiar with the technicalities. And this… this felt so goddamn close. It was impossible, and yet here he was.

Back in the white space.

“What the fuck is going on?!” he demanded immediately.

“Oh, you’ll have to do much better than that, loves,” she answered.

And they were back, in front of the town as it had stood an hour earlier.

Taako looked around, blinking, and then laughed. So THAT’S what that stupid time cup is doing here. Clever.

**

“Oh my god! Do you know who you look EXACTLY like?!”

Taako blinked at the bartender. He looked just like his sister, but that probably wasn’t what she meant. He’d tried to compliment the dark elf on some quality magic and maybe start collecting a little information before anyone died too many more times, but he’d been interrupted for this weird little game of guess-who. “Uhh, no. Who do I look like?”

“Do you remember Taako? That magical chef from a few years ago?”

“Hah! I do!” Taako wasn’t used to getting recognized. It had been years since he’d had his show and he’d found that people tended to just forget the faces of celebrities who weren’t immediately relevant anymore. Even beautiful, talented ones who had tragically died entirely too young.

“I saw him in The Underdark and - oh man you don’t even know, friend. He was my inspiration. He’s the reason I got out of there and started cooking. It was so tragic what happened...”

Taako beamed and leaned over a little to check the time on the clock on the far wall. “Is that so, uh.. What’s your name?”

“Ren,”

“Ren! Yes hello good to meet you. That’s incredible about - Say, can I tell you a secret?”

“Sure, I guess.”

Taako leaned forward over the bar a little. “That’s me.”

“What?”

“Yup.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Here I am, though, my dude.”

“But he DIED.”

“The reports of my death are somewhat exaggerated.” She eyed him harshly. “Don’t believe me? That’s cool, I’ll prove it. You said The Underdark, right? What was that… Quiche lorraine? Right?”

“... Yes. But that’s not- Anyone could know that.”

“Come on! I don’t think my old assistant even remembers that anymore.” Her expression was still dubious and flat, but there was excitement cracking through. “Look, tell you what. Do you have a pen and paper? I’m going to write you down a recipe and if these aren’t the best Gougères you’ve ever tasted…” He started scribbling directions and measurements down on a napkin.

“OK Taako, if that is who you are. Why did you fake your own death?”

“Not really what happened. It’s a super long story, which I will gladly tell you innnn” he looked back at the clock again, “forty five minutes. In the meantime though... here you go,” he handed her the napkin and her pen.” Enjoy that, my boyfriend lost his goddamn mind for those. In the meantime my friends and I are sort of doing some undercover work for Sheriff Isaak so maybe you can answer some questions?”

**

This time the old woman in the nothing space made fun of them, and that didn’t feel quite fair. They’d gotten information and met the fortune teller and Merle had stalked a crazy lady and Taako made a friend, and come on, what’s more important than new friends?! But apparently they’d done worse and Mangus rushed off to tell Roswell exactly who they all were and then fifteen minutes after that they found themselves blown up in a mine.

**

“Let’s do it again!” and Magnus was off again. Fuck. This much death was going to be so hard to explain back at home.

“Taako?” Kravitz’s voice came through his stone. “Is everything…. What’s going on? The book is sort of going absolutely fucking bananas regarding your friends and… everyone in that town” Shit. Right on time.

“Hey there sugar cube. It’s um…. Real fucked up here. But I think we’re figuring it out.”

“Babe. Are we going to have to have a long chat about how many times your friends have died in the last few hours?”

“Oh yeah.” Taako sighed. “I’ve gotta go follow these idiots down into the exploding cave-in riddled diamond mines of death now though, so talk to you in a bit?”

**

“Um… Honey?”

“Exploded again. It’s no big deal.”

The sound Kravitz made in reply made it feel like a very big deal.

**

The next time they managed to avoid exploding, thank the gods. Taako grumbled to himself about losing his shit if it had happened again but Merle smiled and joked and Magnus chugged along towards a shotty looking minecart.

Minutes later they were all dead again, nothing but skeletons.

Well, the two living boys had been eaten. As soon as Taako realized what had happened he’d shifted to his skeletal reaper form and pushed himself into the farthest corner of the cart from where his friends used to be. After a moment he forced himself to think clearly, cast a small beam of light with the umbrella and then experimentally forced it to grow larger as the bugs avoided his makeshift lamp. Taako sighed. “Well, I guess this is good to fucking know for next time.”

He tried to cut a rift and found that he could travel just fine within the bubble - that was good to know, too - and place himself right outside the saloon, looking very much like a living elf again. “Hey, what’s a guy gotta do to repress some very fresh traumatic mental images around here?” He called to the bartender playfully as he sat down.

“Good afternoon sir - Oh my god! Do you know who you look EXACTLY like?! Ren answered again, for the first time.

**

This time they’d made it past the bugs and to a door and “For the love of - can we stop being faced with opportunities to blow ourselves up?! This is a mine! Doesn't that feel super unstable to the rest of this town’s mining operation?! To have parts randomly explode as a security precaution?!”

Magnus cut the green wire and Kravitz sounded so, so unhappy over the stone this time.

**

“You idiots are going to cost me my relationship.”

“You offered to come!” Magnus shot back.

“Try the red wire this time,” Merle suggested.

“I’m going to cut the black one.”

“Nooooooope give me five seconds I have an idea.” Taako tore a rift in the room and came back three seconds later with an armful of timecards, handing the one that read “Isaak” to Merle. “Try this one, I guess.”

“You sure this is the one?”

“I mean… no. But if it’s not we die again so…” he shrugged, huge and dramatic.

It worked.

The room beyond was basically just a large hole in the ground with a handrail and a forcefield and when the boys checked the time they saw they only have about five minutes until the reset and this was a dead end so…

They sat for a few minutes and just waited.

“Ok,” Merle said after a moment. “I have to know. You’re a grim reaper.”

“Yes.”

“So why is your weapon a frilly umbrella? Instead of a scythe or a sword or something...”

“Intimidating.” Magnus finished.

Taako shrugged. “First of all, my umbrastaff is fucking baller as hell. Second, it matches my whole aesthetic way better than the scythe and works just as well.”

“Oh. We thought there may be a reason besides ‘sparkles are pretty great,” Magnus looked disappointed by the answer.

“Sparkles ARE pretty great.” Taako paused. “But also Lup made it, so…”

“Who?” Merle looked confused.

“Lup? My sister.” Right, they didn’t remember her. Oops.

They both blinked for a moment and then Merle said, “I don’t think we can-”

“Oh! Her name sounded like static?” They nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Well, my sister who basically doesn’t exist anymore made it.”

“Ok,” Magnus said as the bank commotion could be faintly heard somewhere above. “Follow up question. You said you knew that red robed guy.”

“Sure do.”

“And he’s not the bad guy.”

“No. He’s a big spoopy nerd, but he’s a good guy.”

“And you’re not one of the bad guys?”

“Aside from being an agent of death, my dude? No.”

“So… are we… like is the bureau and Lucretia? Are we the bad guys?”

Taako blinked. It was almost time to reset and this was so much conversation to have in two minutes. “N… I don’t think so. Do you remember a bunch of months ago those creepy sky eyes with the loud sound?”

“You saw that? How?”

‘Oh, no big deal I was stalking you and rummaging through your bosses stuff for information,’ Taako thought. “I was in the right place at the right time,” Taako said, instead. “You remember though?” They both nodded. “That’s the bad guy. We’re all just trying to figure out how to fight that.”

“So why don’t you and the robe guy work with the Director?” Merle tilted his head to the side.

“We’re… I’m not really friends with her anymore.”

“But you were!?” Magnus bounced a little.

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“She lied to me about something sort of fucking gigantic,” Taako said just before the hole in the ground turned into a gaping cavern of fire and teeth.

The three jumped up and Magnus threw explosives at the monster but the force only seemed to hurt his friends.

Taako felt Merle grab his hand. “You’re like… really cold,” he said with the most obviously forced smile the elf had ever seen.

“Yeah, man. I’m already dead,” but he gave his friend’s hand a squeeze and before he could fully register what had happened it was over and they were back in the white space.

**

“We need more information!”

“Yes. Yes yes yes. You boys go find the sheriff I’ll go get more info from that fortune teller.”

“Doesn’t that cost… a lot of diamonds?”

“Sure does, my man. I got this shit under control though. Peace,” and Taako disappeared through a hole he made against the sky. The other two shrugged and headed towards town.

His doorway opened inside the vault of the bank and Taako scooped up an armful of diamonds into one of his belt pouches before noticing the book on a pedestal with its own personal light and if that wasn’t begging to be read nothing was.

Taako picked up the book and flipped through it, sitting on the ground next to its pedestal and began reading. And the town - the time sickness and the bubble and the clay guardian it all made sense now. Taako tapped on his chin thoughtfully and just as he read the word, “junebug” he felt the ground move. Shit, it was eleven thirty, he’d been in here for half an hour.

He dropped the book near its spot - it would be back again soon anyway - and cut another doorway, placing himself at the front door of Paloma’s cottage.

“Come in,” she said before he knocked.

Her information wasn’t bad, but her scones were better. Taako munched on a third or maybe fourth baked goodie and tried to not be obviously disappointed with what she told him. On one hand, it was nice to know for sure that there would be a not-terrible option when the hunger finally came, but it wasn’t entirely new information… just encouragement. He’d have been annoyed by how many diamonds that had cost him if he hadn’t just stolen them from the bank knowing they’d be right back there in a few minutes.

Seeing Istus though, that may be interesting. Taako had never met the goddess despite her closeness with the Raven Queen and having put in a good word for him. Maybe it was past time he fixed that. But not this time. He’d called to his friends on his stone of farspeach to tell them to head to the temple, but they’d raspberried back at him.

“Way ahead of you, man. We’re talking to a skeleton right now.”

“Oh…. kay.” Taako put down his stone and reached for another scone. “Well that settles that then, thanks for the tip-”

Paloma slammed a hand over his wrist, her eyes strange and bright and wide again. “No.”

“I can lay off your baked stuff if you want my-”

“YOU must go to Istus’s temple as well. The goddess can help you find that which you’ve stopped seeking.”

“Ok I will. Just… probably not this time,” he looked out the window, the clock had just began to strike noon again. “Next time though maybe.”

**

“OK so here’s the deal we need Redmond to go to Istus’s temple and meet with Luca - the skeleton we were talking to - and raise the temple so we-”

“Hold that thought,” Taako said as they approached Roswell. “Junebug.” And just like that the guardian was ready to help, no questions asked.

“How did you -”

“Finish your thing first and I’ll tell you all about my hour.”

**

“What are you looking for in the bank, anyway?” Taako raised an eyebrow at the would be future failed bank robbers.

“That’s not really any of your buis-”

“Ok, my fella, calm down. Is it the jewels or the book?” Redmond blinked. “Because I can just… get those for you without you destroying downtown. IF you help us with this.” The robber opened this mouth and Taako added, “First. I do your job for you, our thing happens first.”

“How do we know you’re not fucking with us?”

“He’s got death goddess powers!” Merle grinned and Taako drew a small rift with his umbrella. It wasn’t large enough to get through, but it was quite effective as a window into the vault. Taako reached a hand in a threw Redmond a diamond.

“We cool?”

He examined the jewel and looked back at the rift as it closed. “What are you?”

“Long story.”

“... Fine. Give me twenty minutes to call of my boys on the scene and I’ll meet you at the temple. And then you get us that diary. But if you’re fucking with us-”

“Yup sounds good got a deal!” Magnus ushered his friends out of the house and off of the farm and towards the remains of the temple. “You really going to give him the diary?” he finally asked.

Taako shrugged. “Depends on how long it takes him to get to the temple. Not like he’ll remember in an hour anyway.”

**

Redmond didn’t arrive until just after the eleven thirty earthquake and by the time he and his skeletal brother had raised the temple Taako was itching to speak to this goddess he’d heard so much about - who apparently had spoken so highly of him.

She treated him no differently than his friends telling them all how special they were, offering them gifts in exchange for their work as emissaries but… Taako was already on such thin ice these days. “It’s going to have to be a no from me. R.Q. is already pretty ready to fire me. Into the sun. Out of a cannon. I don’t think I need to make her any angrier by picking up another patron goddess.”

Istus laughed. “Taako. I’ve been hoping the two of us could meet. Could you stay behind and talk more after your friends take their tokens?”

“Uh yeah, of course.”

When Magnus and Merle went to leave, only minutes remaining before noon, they gave Taako a long questioning look. “Tell Red I’ll be out in five, cool?”

“You got it, man.”

“Taako,” Istus started, “To be clear, the Raven Queen and I are… well we’re very close, and you and your friends are tied so closely to the fate of everything… I think she in part gave you this chance because I’ve considered you one of mine since you came to these planes. I’m going to give you these gifts regardless, as one of the favorites of my dear Raven Queen. I don’t expect any more from you than to keep being exactly who you are.”

Taako took the necklace and bag, not sure what to say, and listened numbly as she explained the contents of the locked puch.

“One other thing, Taako. “I know…. That is to say, fate dictates that you will see your sister again.” Taako felt his mouth go dry.

“H-how? When?!”

The goddess shook her head, “I can’t say for certain. But it won’t be until after your enemy has appeared. But she is close, and she will tell you what you need to know. You just need to listen.”

Taako’s head swam. If she came back after the hunger, did that mean that she’d never truly been lost? That she’d be back to fight with them? Or would they get back on the Starblaster and abandon this plane, pulling her back into life again? And listen to what?

“I’m afraid I cannot tell you any more, Taako.” he heard the town crumbling and burning outside as the promise of getting Lup back filled him with so much hope and joy but the prospect of leaving this plane, of leaving Kravitz behind forever simultaneously made him feel so empty and sick and sad. “But I believe in you three. In all of you. You’re going to be amazing.”

Taako registered the white space and the unwell old woman. He heard Magnus and Merle comparing their new toys, excited that they’d come through the white space unlike everything else they’d picked up. Taako wiped the proof of a difficult conversation with the goddess off of his face and forced himself to get back to work.

**

They stood over the well looking down with Roswell discussing what to do, how to get to the cavern beneath without risking waking the giant work prematurely and oh my god this was so boring but eventually they climbed down the shaft, Roswell following after. When they arived, Taako wasn’t surprised to see that the cup had basically possessed the woman, leaving her in this time prison, but he was surprised to see another person, a man, down here.

Sheriff Isaak didn’t want to give up the chalice, and that seemed about right, but it was in some annoying misguided need to protect them from it and the irony would have been hilarious if Taako wasn’t exhausted and done. Taako felt his eye rolling back almost as a reflex - if only this guy knew where these things came from, who’d made them. But discussing was going nowhere. The sheriff seemed genuinely surprised when the three “Junebug”’d Roswell to action against him but then the girl - no, the Chalice was talking to them and then Taako was alone with the chalice and the woman in a way that made him feel like he’d been hit with a wall of wind. Just the two of them and the white space.

“Taako.”

“Yello there,” he said after taking a moment to recover.

“You’re lonely.” she said bluntly, pulling up images of his past. “You pretend not to be, you have friends and love even, but something is missing, isn’t it? Part of yourself, almost.”

Taako glowered at her as the scene around them changed, but it was hard to look too angry as a montage of his and Lup’s greatest hits replayed before his eyes. The two of them traveling, cooking, conning some tiefling out of a whole bunch of gold... growing up. Taako watched his sister braid his hair as he jotted down notes in a book on the arcane they’d managed to barter for. He watched them try to teach themselves introductory and then increasingly difficult spells in the woods while their dinner sizzled away on the campfire.

Taako watched so many scenes from his own life in silence that his legs grew tired and he found himself sitting next to the younger apparition of himself. He remembered all of these scenes, every conversation - perhaps not the words but the feeling and the smells - he remembered it all. But to see it like this, played out again for him like a stage production of his own life.

Taako’s chest tightened as the show continued forward through IPRE training and the Starblaster and the animal world and the year on the beach and the best day ever. As he knew what was coming.

“She disappeared very abruptly,” the chalice said sympathetically, as Taako watched the other Taako read Lup’s two word letter, remembering every note of confusion and hurt and anguish as the hours had turned into days and then weeks. “Perhaps if she’d let you know, if you’d had noticed her leave. You could have gone with her, watched her back. Things could have been different.”

Taako’s knuckles turned white on his grip around the umbrella’s hooked handle. This wasn’t fair. This was cruel and callous and mean.

“That’s what I can offer you, Taako. Claim me and you go back to before she leaves. You get the opportunity to intercept, to go with her, to stop her from disappearing completely. You never have to be alone again after that, and maybe none of this ever even happens. Perhaps Phandalin never burns. Perhaps you never even meet that man who killed you.”

Taako continued staring at the floor, still the neat metal finish of the ship for a little while, eventually fading back to the bright white blank space. He kept staring as the world around him changed, every part of his brain firing overwhelmingly. He hadn’t seen Lup’s face in so long, not really. He’d seen that painting on Lucretia’s office and the drawing years ago with Sazed that was supposed to been of himself but had the wrong spark to it. He’d seen his own face in mirrors almost every day but it wasn’t the same. It was always close, but nothing was the same as actually physically seeing his sister. He thought of Istus’s promise that he’d be with her again, of the idea of leaving this plane entirely and restarting like they had for a hundred years.

And when Taako finally managed to get his mind under control, he took a deep breath and shut his eyes and thought about what the chalice actually was. What it truly had to offer.

“Fuck off,” he finally said.

“I’m sorry?”

“You can’t actually fix any of this shit. You can make an illusion and replay a couple of hours, but it doesn’t actually change anything. You, my fucking dude, are a very pretty bald-faced lie and I’m going to need you to fuck off now so I can go home.”

“No,” she argued. “I would create for you a timeline where it’s true - where it’s all true. It would be real. It would be yours.”

“Listen,” Istus had said, and Taako wished he had something to listen to now, that Lup could tell him what to do.

So he did the next best thing. “She’d tell you to fuck off, too.”

**

Taako was proud of his friends for not giving in. So fucking proud. Especially of Magnus. He knew better than most about his friend’s loss even if Magnus didn’t seem keen to talk about it. He had a pretty good idea of what the stupid cup had offered and still they were now Chalice in hand … fleeing from that terrifying monster worm.

“UM CAN YOU DO ANYTHING WITH YOUR DEATH POWERS?!” Magnus laughed through a yell.

“That’s not really how ANY of this works, man.

“There’s a fork in the track.”

“OH! I know this one!”

**

“Did you retrieve the chalice?” Barry asked, ever the fan of the dramatics.

Ari was frozen and the worm was gone and Refuge seemed safe but Magnus and Merle almost didn’t seem to know how to respond.

“Yeah, man. They got it,”

“Did they change anything?”

“Um we’re right here.” Magnus waved. “We didn’t use it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You didn’t? They didn’t?” Taako shook his head. “I’m really proud of you. I thought this-”

“That’s what I said!” Taako laughed.

“I need to know. Do you trust me - do you trust us?”

The two still living members of the crew shifted. There wasn’t an easy answer. Taako seemed ok. He’d helped them, saved them on occasion, never tried to keep the relics, seemed to be protecting them from death. But the red robe… Lucretia had told them not to trust him and they couldn’t think of a reason she would lie about this; but if there was nothing else that Taako proved was how much they still didn’t know.

“I don’t know.” Merle finally said.

“Yeah I mean…. who are you? We’ve sort of gotten to know him, but we don’t know shit about you.”

“Basically you’ve gone from a ‘hell no’ to a ‘maybe’ because Taako’s pretty ok.”

Taako laughed and the red robe slumped. “I need you to - next time we meet-”

The elf put a hand on his red shoulder. “It’ll be okay, man,” he said quietly. “You know how disorienting this is for them.”

“Still. It’s coming. Soon.”

**

After the town caught up with time. After the feasts and the parties. After Taako gave his friends his professional guarantee that none of the thousands of combined deaths that had happened in this town would count against any of them on an astral level. After Magnus had handed him a stack of letters and a few small carvings, claiming that he’d really limited how much he let himself make Taako bring to Julia - he’s a reaper, not a delivery man, after all. After he’d walked back into Ren’s saloon, laughing when she sarcastically asked if he knew who he looked like and then announced in reply, “I owe you a recipe and a story, don’t I?” After he’d returned home and told a very worried Kravitz about his ridiculous day and found himself unable to escape from tight hugs in the foyer and and then cuddles on the couch more meant to comfort his boyfriend then himself, Taako felt the telltale vibration of a quiet voice coming through his stone of farspeech.

“If they want you to go on another suicide mission tell them I say to fuck off,” Kravitz gumbled and Taako shoo’d his commentary away.

“Go for Taako.”

“You want me to trust you, right?” Magnus voice was quiet and strained like he was working hard to not be overheard.

“I mean, me telling people to be more trusting is sort of the pot calling the ket-”

“The statue in Refuge,” he interrupted. “The red robe with the two … Why was the red robe in statue me?”

Chapter Text

“Why was the red robe in the statue me?”

Taako stared at his stone and sat up very straight, Kravitz letting out a tiny disgruntled “hmmf,” as the elf stopped leaning on him.

“How did you-”

“Does it really matter?”

“No, just curious. Look, is there anywhere we can chat that isn’t the moon base?”

“You think people are listening in here?”

“I mean, I don’t know,” Taako sighed. “But Luce and I aren’t on speaking terms and I physically can’t go there”

“‘Luce’?”

“Yeah… Lucretia, Lucy, Luce… Definitely call her that next time you see her, she’ll love it.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”

Taako couldn’t tell for sure, either. She probably would be genuinely thrilled and then quickly pretend to brush Magnus off for not being professional. “Your call. But yeah,not the base.”

“How about wherever you are?”

“On the Astral Plane? You probably shouldn’t volunteer to come here, my dude.”

Taako looked back at a smirking Kravitz. “No, by all means have them come here. Have both largest bounties I’ve ever goddamn seen come directly to me.”

“Hush. Ok Mags… I can think of a few quiet bars we can chat in.”

“Sure. Sounds good.”

“Cool, when were you thinking? And can you get to the ground easily or…?”

“Leaving shouldn’t be a problem. And soon. As soon as possible. Right now, maybe.”

“NOOO,” Kravitz yelled in the background.

“Yeah, that’s not going to work… What’s your schedule look like over there?”

“I don’t know,” Magnus grumbled. “The Director used the word ‘grueling’ to describe our training until we get the next relic.

‘The next relic’, Taako thought. Only the bell was left. Looking for that one was what cost Lucretia years of her already so limited life span. Looking for that resulted in her self described . So yeah, of course the guys should train as hard as they could before whatever that was. But goddamnit, Luce. Why send them in at all? Why didn’t she just call on the people who she knew could have taken care of those monsters? Why hadn’t she just been honest with him when he’d asked? Taako hated the idea of his friends in any more danger than they needed to be. That was a mission he would definitely join them on regardless of what else was going on at work. It involved liches, anyway. That must qualify as a business trip. “Yikes,” was all he said.

“Yeah.”

“Let me know when you guys can sneak away, then. I’ll make it work. I’m already in hot water with the boss, so what’s another strike?”

“Yeah, ok.” Magnus said. “And um… It’s just going to be me.”

“Oh…” Taako stammered for a moment. “Merle. He doesn’t know?”

“No.”

“Oh. Ok.” The elf looked over at Kravitz, making impatient grabbing motions with his hands. “Mags, I need to go, but keep in touch. I’ll explain everything that I can.”

“Sure thing.”

**

Magnus turned over the stone in his hand a few times impatiently. Not being able to remember… feeling fuzzy and staticy when he tried. Even some off-hand comments Taako had made throughout the missions he’d joined them on... Everything smacked of information being erased. Every bit of it felt, if not voidfish related, voidfish adjacent.

Magnus put the stone down and instead reached for the tools Carey had gifted him and his quietest boots. Waiting was good and fine and he knew that Taako would likely have to fill in blanks no matter what, but standing idly by wasn’t Magnus’s style.

In the meantime, he decided, he would visit the voidfish on his own.

**

It took weeks, but Magnus finally found the perfect opportunity to sneak away from the base without raising the suspicion of the only people who would really notice. Merle had taken The Director away to some spa, and despite at least a few comments about how inappropriate the trip was, she seemed so happy to have been asked. Well, happy in her own carefully professional, subtle way.

He sat across from the reaper in a bar in the underdark where the bars were small and dark and nobody questioned strangers not wanting to be bothered. Perfect for exchanging secrets.

“OK so…. I can explain everything all night long and you'll won't HEAR anything, y'know? So how do you want to do this, my man?”

Magnus swallowed half of his beer in one nervous gulp. “I’m not sure. I just need to know and I don't know who else to ask.”

“What if….” Taako traced a finger around the rim of his wine glass and pondered. “What if you ask me yes or no questions? Kinda can't go wrong there.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Ok.”

“Hell yeah, Mags. Shoot.”

Magnus took a deep breath and stared intently at his nearly empty mug. “Am I… Am I one of those red robes?”

“Fuck, man. Starting with a hardball right off the top? Yes - Well, you were.”

“How was I?” Taako just looked at him, eyes falling to half mast with exasperation. “You can’t… I mean the answer will just be static, huh?”

“Yupperoonie,” Taako pointed a finger gun at his friend.

“OK fine. Were you?”

“Was I what? A red robe? Why do you call them that, by the way?”

“Yes. And I don’t know… I think that’s what The Director called them - er, us - and it stuck.”

“Huh.”

“Why? What do you call them?”

Taako thought about this for a moment. His friends, he guessed. Or the crew. Or the IPRE. Or his family. He’d thought of the group of them as having so many titles, but it had never occurred to him to name them after their work uniform color. “I don’t have a better name for them. And yes, I was part of the group.”

“That’s how you already knew us - wait, was Merle?”

“Yes and yes.”

“Why don’t we remember anything?”

“Honestly, my man. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Also, you’re like… real bad at this yes or no questions game.”

“How do you remember everything?” he ignored Taako’s commentary.

“I died.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah… Not ideal, but …. That’s how Barry remembers everything, too. Liches are super undead.”

“Barry?”

“Yes…”

“Wait…

“Waiting.”

“Barry Bluejeans… like from Phandalin?”

“Oh good, you remember him.”

“He died!”

“Yeah, that’s why he rem-”

“Why hasn’t he just said that at some point in the last year? ‘Hey guys you know that dude in those caves who you tried real hard to save but died anyway? That’s me! Yay friends!’ instead of being a fucking creeper and asking if we were scared and disappearing!?”

Taako leaned back in his chair and laughed hard. “Barold is one of my favorite people,” he said wiping a tear away. “Like seriously I would do just about anything for that nerd - but when I told you he was a big extra dork, I meant that he is one of the three most over the top people I have ever met. And I’m including myself in that list. ‘Hello my name is Barry and we’re friends and you should trust me,’ is so simple it probably never even occurred to him.”

Magnus wanted to scream and laugh at the same time. This was ridiculous, but it made his head feel fuzzy and staticky the same way that thinking too hard about himself in the statue had, so he must be on the right track. “Ok. Ok ok, more questions. Were there more of us?”

“Yes.”

“Do I know them?”

“Like, have you ever known them? Or since you’ve forgotten have you re-met them?”

“Re-met.”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Lup is missing, but besides-”

“What?” Magnus looked blank. “Who?”

“My sister.”

“Oh. Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“This sucks, man. The Director told us that the voidfish water would make us remember but,” Taako’s eyes widened and he leaned in as if getting physically closer to Magnus’s words would help him understand. “But there’s more now that sounds like static than before we drank it. I was never this confused about the world before… What?”

“Run this by me again, Mags. What made you remember some of this stuff?”

“Drinking the water from the voidfish tank?’

“Okay. Gross. Big one or the little one?”

“You know about the baby?” Taako nodded vigorously. “Big one. I don’t even know where the baby is - like I’ve only sort of heard about it.”

“How did you hear about it?!”

“I jumped in the voidfish tank while I was waiting for us to both be free-”

“I’msorrywhat?”

“And it showed me all sorts of weird visions and... That was all gobbledygook, but it told me about an egg and a baby.”

Taako sat back and thought. Fisher’s gross water brought the memories back, but only some of them. So the rest must have been fed to the small one in Lucretia’s private quarters. This was great. This was really really great - he knew how to make Magnus and Merle remember everything - maybe even Davenport could…

But he couldn’t get to the base to get to the second voidfish and Barry couldn’t get onto the base to dismantle whatever necromancy doodad she had keeping him off thanks to the anti-lich doodad...

“Ok, Magnus. I’m going to level with you as much as I possibly can. I know where the second fish is but I can’t get to it. Neither can Barry. I can walk you through how to get to it but… Remembering everything is going to be hard. Like I’m legit worried it will mess you guys up really bad to remember everything so quickly.”

“You did it.”

“I got everything back slowly. It took me days to get all of my memories after I died… Plus I had died. It doesn’t get much worse for your health than that. Plus-plus, unless she’s moved it, it’s in the room behind her office and there are all sorts of traps and shit. BASICALLY I can tell you where it is and probably how to get to it, but getting past Luce and then not destroying yourself mentally after would… be the hard parts…”

Magnus sighed. “Should I trust The Director?”

“That’s…” Taako wanted to say no. Fuck her. She’d lied. She’d taken their memories and left them out in the world to have fuck-only-knows-what happen to them. But realistically, Taako knew, they’d all been in relatively good places and she had checked in on them regularly the same way that he had. He didn’t trust her, but was there any reason Magnus shouldn’t? “Look, man. I don’t trust her. But that’s for personal reasons. I don’t think she’d ever do anything to intentionally hurt you or Merle.”

“I don’t know what to do with that information.”

“Yeah. And I don’t know how to clarify without it turning into garbage noises.” Magnus made a raspberry sound and crossed his arms and Taako laughed and finished his drink. “Ok how about this. I’ll give you the instructions - how to get to the second fish. Bring a flask or something so you can grab a bunch of gross tank water. But look, Mags, don’t drink that shit until you’re ready. Like you have people around who know what’s going on and can help or a solid chunk of time to recover. This is going to hit you like a warhammer to the face.”

“Fine.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

“No man, like promise promise.”

“Yes!”

Taako gave him the sternest look he could while finishing his wine, looking almost silly instead.

“I have one more question.”

“Shoot.”

“Did you give Julia my letters?”

“Yes!” Taako jumped a little. “I almost forgot. Here you go.” He pulled a large stack of envelopes out of his bag and passed them to his friend. “I guess she says hi?”

**

Magnus returned home to the base feeling both more and less clear about the world around him, about who he was. But Taako had promised him a way to get his answers and he ached to go on this side quest. Not just to know more, he wanted that of course, but he needed to find the baby fish for its parent. He couldn’t quite explain the closeness he felt to the voidfish, but he wanted it to be happy the same way he wanted for his friends.

But the opportunity never presented itself. And even if it had, even if there had been an perfect time to sneak into The Director’s personal rooms and past the traps that Taako had painstakingly described, it would have been impossible to re-inoculate himself. There just wasn’t the time to dedicate to recovery from ‘getting hit in face with a metaphorical warhammer’ as the elf had described it. And nobody to help with the process besides The Director… And at that point he may as well just let her know that he planned on waltzing back there.

So instead he threw himself into his training, facing harder and harder practice foes in preparation for what Lucretia promised would be their most dangerous mission yet. And he waited.

They were some of the longest goddamn weeks of his life and it was hard to keep the answers from Merle when the dwarf asked if everything was ok. And to add insult to injury, Magnus found himself considering the consequences of remembering a shared history with people who, until now, he’d only remembered knowing for a year or so. What would that mean for the history that he could remember? What would that mean for life as a carpenter? For his time with Julia? Was all of that still real? How much of what he knew was just made up? Magnus picked up his stone so many times to ask Taako, to clear his mind of this new existential crisis, but in the end he’d just put it down and shook his fears off. Nothing would ever invalidate Julia and he couldn’t not know who he was.

The opportunity came, finally, days before The Director sent them out to retrieve the last relic. She’d called them into her office and asked how prepared they felt for the mission ahead, how they thought that their training had been going. If they felt stronger and more competent. They answered yes, they guessed. But Lucretia knew what a ridiculous question it was. How do you gauge your ability to fight an enemy you know less than nothing about?

“Do you plan on calling your grim reaper friend to help with this retrieval as well?” she finally asked, forcing her voice to stay as matter-of-fact as possible.

“Y...Yes?” Merle said, looking at Magnus for consensus.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Ok,” she nodded once. Good. His skill set would be invaluable for the enemies they’d face and he wished she’d taken him up on his offer to retrieve the bell and lock away the liches in Wonderland years earlier. Lucretia frowned, her stubbornness had cost her a friendship and let that terrible place continue to hurt people for much longer than it had to.

“I need to go planetside for a day or two, but I will be back to give you the full briefing before this retrieval. Please try to get some rest. You’ll need to be in top form for this one.”

The boys nodded in agreement and headed back to their apartment when they were dismissed.

After Merle was asleep and Magnus was certain The Director had left he snuck out of their apartment and towards Lucretia's office.

**

It was time. Lucretia called them back to her office and briefed them on Wonderland, how dangerous it was, the price she had paid for not being careful it enough. She showed them the flier that had tempted her to that place and stressed again how treacherous this would be. It was the most stressed either of them had seen her in their entire time at the bureau and if she knew what Magnus had done, she didn’t let on in the slightest.

He’d called Taako before gone to her office, making sure the wizard would be there to at least consult if something was different or wrong, but it had gone smoothly. Perfectly and completely according to the notes Taako had left him with.

Except for one small hitch when Magnus felt himself pulled into quicksand. Feeling drowned, crushed, terrified, and completely incapable of calling out meaningfully.

“It’s probably an illusion,” Taako said through the stone, calmly. Perhaps even bored.

“EGFGAH?!!”

“Yeah like… close your eyes and take a deep breath and tell yourself that it’s fake. Where would Luce have even kept a sand pit in her room, right? It’s definitely fake.”

“You were right,” Magnus said after a pause.

“Natch.”

Magnus felt in his pocket for the flask and the stone of farspeech as Madame Director finished her briefing and wished them luck and nervously sent them off to Wonderland.

**

“So, Merle. I sort of have something to tell you,” he said nonchalantly as they hurtled over the landscape.”

“Yeah.”

“Last night I broke into the Director’s office to - don’t look at me like - because she has a second voidfish so I got some of it’s icker and I think we can start remembering everything that we’d forgotten that we’d forgotten.”

Merle was laughing. “Magnus, what the hell?! Where did you hide that stuff?”

“Right here,” he pulled a flask out of a pocket and swished it around a little “Oh shit I think this is us! Hit the break!”

**

Well the orb was destroyed, but they were out of the swamp and had called Taako to meet them. He’d announced that he’d “be there in like five,” before going silent again.

“So you wanna?” Magnus held up the last swig of voidfish water he hoped to ever drink.

“I mean… sure.”

Magnus leaned on a tree on the path they had finally found and swallowed a mouthful of the icker before handing it off.

Merle followed suit and barely put the cap back on the flask before losing his grip on it and letting it tumble to the ground as everything…

Chapter Text

“That was the guys. I need to go,” Taako tucked his stone into a pocket in his robe and grabbed a few useful supplies and spell components. Kravitz looked nervous and unhappy, arms crossed tightly, watching Taako prep to go.

Kravitz was supposed to go with on this one - Taako had promised they would take this one on together. He knew that he could use the help herding his friends and brining in two liches, and Kravitz couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that floated back to the surface every time he thought about Taako on the last mission.

But almost as soon as Taako’s stone called out with his friend’s voices, Kravitz found himself summoned in a different direction. Something weird - “What kind of weird? What do you mean you can’t describe it?” - was happening and ideally they’d check it out together. In reality, they were going separate and on their own.

“Please tell me this one won’t be as stupid dangerous as the last one.”

“‘Eh. What’s the worst that can happen?” Taako shrugged, hooking a pouch to his belt with a grin. “I die?”

Kravitz frowned and walked towards his boyfriend, uncrossing his arms and wrapping them around the elf instead. “I still hate it when you’re hurt,” he said quietly into Taako’s hairline. “And I don’t want to be apart from you when the hunger attacks. That should be soon, right?”

Taako took pause. He’d been meaning to bring this up but the time never felt right and now he’d been beaten to it. And worse, Kravitz was right. The hunger would be back soon - any day now probably. “If the world starts to end I’ll come find you, I promise.”

“Taako, if you all have to leave-”

“Stop it.”

“-if you disappear… I’ll never forgive myself if I miss my chance to say goodbye.”

“I’m not going fucking anywhere,” Taako said, much more confidently than he actually felt. “You’re stuck with me, pumpkin.”

“I certainly hope so”

**

Taako came out of the rift exactly where the boys said they’d be waiting, all smiles and readiness to get the show on the road. Instead he found his friends doubled over, panicking, looking like they’d been hit by a train. He saw the flask on the ground next to Merle and how Magnus held his face like his eyes were going to escape and their sheer overwhelmed confusion and he knew exactly what they had done.

“Oh fuck, guys, what the fuck?!”

Taako pulled them both to the ground as gently as he could and - shit, Barry would be so much better at this than me… or Lup if she were anywhere. He coaxed them both into sitting and hardly groaned at all when both draped themselves over him in their two very unique ways. He told them as much as he could about the Starblaster, and their shared adventures, and training and history. He reminded them of their friendship, and their inside jokes, and their twin-sunned planet.

When he ran out of things to say Taako waited in silence, hoping for any response. Any indication that he hadn’t gotten there too late to help them through this, that he wouldn’t have to drag them home and let them sleep it off on his couch to the tune of a very confused Kravitz.

“You guys ok?” he asked when they finally stirred.

“I think so, yeah.” Merle said.

Magnus turned towards them in reply and pulled both into a hug before Taako could protest. “I missed you!”

“Hah, shut up, no you didn’t.” Taako argued, smiling, so happy he could cry. “You didn’t even remember me.”

“Still.”

“So you’re both ok? And you remember everything now?” They nodded. “Oh ok great. Just one more question then- WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU TWO THINKING?!”

Merle laughed, hysterical and joyful and Magnus grinned, shrugging. “I didn’t think it would be that bad.”

“I literally, LITERALLY told you how bad it would be you ding-dong!”

“I mean, you came to save us from ourselves. And we knew you were on your way.”

“So it all worked out.” Merle finished.

Taako eyed him, trying to maintain his aloof coolness, giving up into a grin quickly. “So you dudes know what’s going on?”

“Lucretia fed our memories to Fisher,” Magnus said. “I saw her right at the end there. She said she wanted to fix things?”

“That sounds right,” Taako said dryly.

“Why didn’t she just - Wouldn’t we have been more helpful if we knew what was going on?” Merle asked.

Taako shrugged, “I think she didn’t want you guys - us, I mean - to feel guilty or whatever.”

“This is why you’re mad at her,” Magnus said in a tone that was almost questioning. Taako nodded twice and the other two exchanged glances and frowned. “I mean, it sounds like she had her reasons, T.”

“Yeah which is why I’m not telling you not to trust her, but I’m good, personally. I might have found Lup earlier if it wasn’t for her.”

“Oh shit, Lup.”

“Yeah, but like… found her,” Taako said sardonically, holding up the umbrastaff a little.

“Shit, Taako,” Magnus said quietly. “Was - is she -”

“Yeah,” the wizard shrugged numbly. Even now, years later, what he’d found in that cave never became easier to talk about.

“OH CRAP!” Merle yelped suddenly, interrupting Magnus’s attempt to grapple Taako into another hug. “The hunger is coming back.”

“Sure is, my dude. Any day now, in fact. So… we should actually go get the bell and head back because we have like… a lot of work to do.”

Taako didn’t notice Barry come out of the woods, but Magnus and Merle did and announced his presence with a loud “BARRY!”

The lich paused for a moment in unadulterated shock and then, “H… Hello?”

“Way to miss having to help me walk these chucklefucks through remembering, Barold. Super convenient.”

“Wait, they remember everything?”

“Hell yes,” Merle said.

“Everything? How?”

“Found Fisher’s baby,” Magnus answered. “Got a bunch of tank water in a flask.”

“Is there any left?” Barry finished approaching them now.

Merle picked up the flask he’d dropped and gave it a shake near his ear. “Yeah, sounds like we have a bunch. How much more do we need?”

“Not much,” Barry hovered in the circle they’d formed in the path. “Enough for me. Maybe Captainport when we get back to the base.”

“Why do you need - you do remember everything.” Merle tossed the flask back to its owner.

“I do for now,” Barry tried to clarify. But I won’t when I’m back in my body.”

“Wait. Wait wait. What?” Magnus blinked.

“Necromancy,” Taako clarified. “He weird scienced himself a new flesh body so he’s less spoopy.”

“I mean, that isn’t how I’d -”

“Isn’t that against the rules?” Magnus gave Taako a long look. “Like, the rules you’re supposed to enforce?”

“Sure is, my man.”

“I can’t tell if you’re really bad at your job or if you’re just allowed to get away with murder for some reason.” the dwarf smirked.

“It helps that he’s sleeping with the boss’s son,” Barry grinned.

“OH MY GOD! OK first of all, fuck you guys, I’m great at my job. Second off, I’m getting away with this bullshit because I told the Raven Queen what was up so I have temporary license to not kill all of you ungrateful ass-hats who we’ll need to help fight the hunger.”

“Works for me.” Merle shrugged. “This puts me on … three gods’ good sides?”

“Yeah, well. Don’t get used to it. I’m only temporarily off of the R.Q.’s shitlist and I’m pretty sure if we make it through this I’m still getting fired directly into the Eternal Stockade and I won’t exactly be able to advocate for you guys from there.”

Barry sighed uncomfortably. “Regardless, guys, we need to get going. The hunger will be here soon - very soon - and we need the bell so we can run with the light if it comes to that,” he ignored the look on Taako’s face and continued, “or - or maybe Lucretia has figured out how to use the whole thing like a weapon and regardless we need to get this last part and regroup before the shit really hits the fan.”

“Agreed,” Magnus nodded.

“So what do we know about this place?” Barry asked.

“Wonderland,” Magnus and Merle said in unison.

“It’s run by liches,” Taako continued. “And it really fucked Luce up when she tried to come through.”

“Isn’t that like your bread and butter?” Merle asked Taako. “Like no biggie you can just escort them to ghost land?”

“It doesn’t really work like that… In theory I’m a little more equipped than you guys to deal with them, but it’s not like it’ll be effortless. We’d still have to fight - we can still get pretty messed up.”

“Well. Shit,” Magnus said.

“Yeah.”

“I have a thought,” Barry cut in. “You are the only two who are supposed to be here and T and I are both dead - which makes us a lot harder to sense or find or … you know. What if you guys go in as expected and we stick by invisible. Try to figure out a weakness or help out from the shadows and stuff. And that way Taako can take some time to figure out how to deal with these liches or if he’ll have to call Kravitz for backup.”

“That’s your boyfriend, right?” Merle asked. “I’m happy for you T, settling down with a nice guy.”

“He made you lose your arm!”

“That was you! You cut my arm off!.”

“ARE YOU KIDDING IT WAS-”

“HEY!” Hey guys!” Taako yelled, snapping his fingers. “My man is great, thank you for noticing, Merle. Barry, that’s a decent idea. It’ll be a little hard to communicate with these two chucklefucks, but overall pretty solid.”

“Can you guys really do that?” Magnus asked.

“Do what, my dude?”

“Get invisible and stalk us and shit.”

“Oh,” Taako blinked. “Heck yeah.”

“I’ve been watching you guys all year,” Barry added.

“Me too.”

“Guys. That’s creepy.” Merle cringed a little.

“Mmhhm…?” Taako wasn’t sure how else to respond to this.

“Yes,” Barry said, deadpan. “The lich and the agent of death are creepy… News at five. We’ve basically been having a goth-off since Phandalin. Can we get going?”

Taako held up a hand for a high-five and Barry met him halfway as the two blinked out of sight.

**

Communicating was difficult, Barry found. Taako could effectively do whatever he wanted without risking being heard by the living thanks to his Raven Queen powered additions to his magic, but the lich didn’t come equipped with such protections. So when Taako crossed his arms and motioned at the three travelers who their friends had met out in the Felicity Wilds and loudly said, “Lord Artemis Douche-baby of Never-wherever sure is a pain in the ass, huh?” Barry found it uncomfortably difficult to not break out in laughter and agreement. Taako placed a hand on his shoulder. “Try saying something. Yes, I mean it,” he added when the lich shot him a look that married curiosity and panic.

“Are you sure?” he whispered as Magnus and Merle became friends with the lord’s traveling companions.

“Yeah, man. I think I can share some of my perks with you.

“UM??” Barry said experimentally but loud. Nobody seemed to notice.

“Niiice,” Taako said. “Now that we can talk, what a fucking loser, am I right?”

**

“You guys still with us?” Merle asked as the door spun and their three companions through the Felicity Wilds disappeared. Barry reached out and gave each of them a bony but reassuring hand squeeze as the door spun back, now reading “MAGNUS & MERLE”

Taako gave Barry a thumbs up as they stepped through and then blinked away again. “Sorry, broseph,” he heard Taako’s voice quietly say. “I don’t want to risk the liches here seeing me, so I’m going to be a little incognito for a few.”

Barry’s non-existent stomach lurched in anxiety as an invisible hand squeezed his shoulder and was gone.

Taako didn’t wander far from his friends, but did walk a little off in the darkness trying to understand exactly where it was that he found himself. But without casting true-seeing on himself or shifting into his reaper form he couldn’t seem to sense much at all, and he told himself that it was way too early in the game to play those cards. What if he needed that spell slot later or shifting forms alerted them to his presence? He could feel that there were liches close-bye, sure, but he knew that months ago.

He wasn’t prepared for the show they put on when they did appear though, and it took everything the elf had not to simultaneously laugh and cheer. Their showmanship, their unabashed over the top glitz and glamour as a precursor to what Lucretia and every logical molecule the wizard possessed promised would be life-threatening danger - these two reminded Taako of Lup and himself turned up to eleven and rolled in sequents. Taako both making a mental note to tell Lup all about this when he did see her again and reminding himself that these were liches who had the bell and would have to be dealt with properly.

He walked back to Barry and took his hand. “What do you think?” he said after listening to the twin liches introductory speech.

“I don’t know,” he whispered back, absentmindedly clutching Taako’s hand in response. “I guess we could attack now or follow them through the game and try to get more information… There’s only two of them. Or is that a lot?”

Taako shook his head, not that Barry could see. “It depends on them. You were a lot on your own… These two, who knows,” he finally answered before letting go, gone again as far as Barry could tell.

**

The first room alone was enough. Taako watched his friends agree to give up parts of themselves, watched as some essence was pulled away when they complained and he silently fumed. This was ending, he decided. He had no interest in watching how more of this game progressed or seeing his friends continue to hurt, but when he reached for his stone and called for Kravitz there was nothing.

Taako tried again with the same outcome and then once more and… he wasn’t sure if Kravitz wasn’t there or if something was blocking his voice from getting through. Taako’s mind raced. Kravitz was out on his own job, but he was almost never unable to talk? And he knew where the elf was going - well, more or less. He’d known enough to be concerned and there was no way he wouldn’t answer when Taako called.

Taako’s insides contracted with a worry that he couldn’t quite put a finger on as he considered drawing a rift back home just to check. But that might draw attention, put his friends in more danger. Shit. Shit shit shit.

He forced himself to take a deep meditative breath and turn his focus back on his shipmates and what might be in store for them as the next door opened and the four walked through. Once there he grabbed Barry’s hand again. “I can’t contact Kravitz,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that, man. I called and nothing.”

“Damn.... Have you noticed the smog coming out of their mouths?” Barry changed the subject suddenly, clearly fixated on whatever clue he’d found.

“Yeah,” Taako nodded at nobody in particular. “It looks linked to complaining...So when the guys talk about how much this sucks-”

“I think they’re using it,” Barry continued quickly. “I think that’s what’s powering all of this.”

Taako tapped a finger on Barry’s skeletal knuckle in thought and then asked, “Think you can use it, too?”

“One step ahead of you, T.”

**

The fight was brutal, and worse was not being able to help, but they had a plan now - weak and half formed as it still may be. Taako and Barry combined efforts in the corner trying to figure out just how to control this new energy source. The entire process was much farther in Barold’s wheelhouse, but Taako was nothing if not inventive, always the engineer, and when they’d finally figured it out Taako stood and walked behind Merle, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s me,” he said when the cleric jumped a little. “Cast a spell - literally any attack spell - when I get to one. Kapish?” Merle nodded and Taako counted down slowly from three.

When he reached one the two shot spells simultaneously and together at the remaining enemies, and while their combined attack was powerful and brought the fight to an abrupt and absolute end, Taako blinked at this umbrastaff. ‘That should have been stronger’, he thought. ‘Twice as strong.’ That was one of his most powerful spells and it came directly from his link with the Raven Queen. “This place fucking sucks”, he grumbled almost silently, too angry for his hurting friends and his own surprisingly drained magic to keep is cool much longer.

“What was that?” one of the liches voices broke in playfully.

“There’s no way you summoned that much energy all by yourself,” the other joined in helpfully.

Taako swatted Merle on the shoulder, reminding him to cover for them. “Oh! Yeah. Yup. That was me.” Merle was possibly the least convincing liar and Taako rubbed his hands on his face in frustration. “You haven’t even seen the half of what I can do when I call upon Pan.”

“That’s cute” the first lich giggled. “Now, how did you really do that? What’s the ace up your sleeve?”

“No ace!” Merle insisted. “I’m just way stronger than you thought.”

“Oh ARE you?” the second lich’s voice came back. “Well then I hope you’re ready for part two. This was just a warm up. But I’m sure it’s nothing someone as strong as you can’t handle.”

Magnus was staring at Merle now, mouthing “what the fuck is wrong with you?” and throwing his arms up.

Merle could only shrug in answer before asking if Magnus wanted be healed, successfully changing the subject when he agreed that yeah, healing was probably a good idea around now. And it worked all right, but not like it should have. Taako noticed how much less the spell worked than Merle had expected, about half as much - same as his own magic and shit… The elf knew what was happening. They were being cut off from the other planes. His hands balled into fists wondering what it was that could do this. Had Lucretia started on her plan early? She wouldn’t have. She’d have known that they’d have no chance here without access to their magic… Was it these liches cutting them off? Was it something else?

Not that it mattered. Almost as soon as the spell sort of worked the liches declared it cheating and the two were hurt again and Taako could feel himself growing angrier by the moment.

As the they stepped into the next room Taako hooked his arm around Barry’s. “So what can you necromance up with that junk? I want to get these dudes out of here ten minutes ago.”

“I think I can make a door. Not sure how much good it will do us, but at least we’ll be in a different room than the one we’ve been cycling through on repeat.”

“Great. Killin’ it, Barold.”

“I can definitely see how they’re using the bell here… I just wish I knew where it was.”

“Ditto, obviously. But if we get rid of them… What do you need to do to get this show on the road Barold?”

“Just some time… And for the boys to complain. I can borrow their negative smog crap for this and the faster they make it the-”

“Got it, Bar. I’m on it,” and Taako let go and was gone again.

He linked his arms around Magnus and Merle at the same time just a few moments later. “OK fellas here t-”

“GAHH!,” Magnus yelped in surprise.

“....REALLY Mags?!”

“You’re cold” he said as quietly as he could, making an extra effort to speak through the corner of his mouth. “And you surprised me.”

“I’m DEAD! Ok. Ok you guys. I - you’re family and I’d kill for you, but sometimes I hate you and right now is one of those times. Can we listen now? Are we good? Awesome. Stall these two and complain like as much as you can. Say nothing at all if you totally understand and have zero questions because we have a plan. Got it? Good.” He didn’t wait for either to make any reply before letting go and backing up a little to observe, his umbrella firmly in hand and ready.

Merle spun the wheel and landed on eye and whined, loudly about picking the same thing twice, wanting a reroll, being bored by the unimaginative selection before moving on to asking if he could have a full description of whatever eyepatch he’d get in replacement. Hemming and hawing et nauseum as columns of black smoke lazily drifted away from him and towards Barry. Magnus waited a few minutes and then announced that Merle was taking too long and spun for himself despite the objections from the liches as they told to wait his turn and follow the rules of the game.

When Magnus and Merle began bickering amongst themselves over who was ruining the game, who was cutting whom in the order, who was being indecisive… the liches began to obviously lose their cool, their composure and form shifting just slightly.

Taako smiled, this would be easy if they ended up sabotaging themselves.

Merle made fun of Magnus for thinking that slicing at the slime monster earlier would be a good idea and Magnus countered by calling out the Cleric’s inability to heal them.

“Hey man, outch. I know we’re playing a game here, but I’m doing my best.”

“Oh shit, no you're doing great. This whole mission is just bullshit.”

One of the liches screamed wordlessly in frustration as the other yelled, “Choose! JUST CHOOSE! BOTH OF YOU!”

They both stopped and turn to look at the twins, neither sure what to do and unsure how to ask Taako or Barry for instructions.

“We um… Don’t want to,” Merle finally said.

“Yeah these options suck and honestly, we’re just trying to waste your time.”

Taako glanced over at Barry, doing a pretty damn good job of turning their overwhelming negativity into something workable and then back to the liches, momentarily overwhelmed and shocked by Magnus’s sudden honesty.

“Well if you won’t choose,” Lydia growled as her brother threw a dark ball of magic at their contestants and… this was too much. Taako was done.

He batted at the orb with the umbrastaff, throwing the lich’s magic away from his friends and into the far wall, stepping into view. “Hey guys, I have an idea. How about no?”

“Ohhho, so you’ve been cheating,” Edward’s sing-song voice laced with venom.

“Oh yeah,” Taako agreed. “Like real hard. I think Barry’s jus’ bout done if you two wanna see what he’s up to and youuuuu,” Taako turned toward the liches, shifting to his reaper state, “I have just so much business with.”

“Oh shit,” Lydia froze.

“Yeah, my dudes.”

“We can explain we had-” Edward stammered.

Taako held up a hand, “You know what though, here’s the thing. I just don’t care. At all.” They looked between themselves for a moment as Barry ushered their friends through the doorway he’d made and Taako smirked, deciding to take a bluff from Kravitz’s book. “Tell you assholes what. Give me that bell and I won’t turn y’all into literal dust.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Like within the rules or physically you don’t think that’s a thing I can do? Because fuckin’ try me.”

The twins were silent for a pregnant second before disappearing completely from the room.

“Shit!” Taako yelled at the darkness, his companions and his bounties both gone. He cut a rift, quietly begging it to still work despite the quickly dwindling connection with the source of his powers.. And it did. The effort was strained and laborious, but he walked through to meet his friends nonetheless. “Nice timing, Barold.”

“Yeah, you too. But um.. What’s going on in here and where is this?”

Taako look around at the catwalk and the mannequins and at Magnus and Merle equally surprised and disturbed by their surroundings. “I mean.. I’m guessing Hell?”

“We have a counter offer!” Edward said from somewhere above on the catwalk as Taako crossed his arms and leaned into one hip, making an effort to look as bored as possible. “You all leave and we don’t have to fucking kill you.”

Magnus was already half-way up the steps. Taako watched him with a sigh and drew another difficult rift to pull himself through, Merle jumped in behind the reaper and nearly getting stuck half way as it began to close prematurely.

The fight was familiar and fluid and Taako was almost having fun taking on enemies who had a vague understanding of how to land a blow even close to one of the Raven Queen’s personal enforcers for once. Magnus and Merle became more and more the versions of themselves before they’d forgotten with every move and Barry was surprisingly apt support.

It stopped being fun when Edward stole Magnus’s body from around him, giving the rightful inhabitant a hard shove towards the astral plane.

Shit shit shit fuck shit, Taako drew another hole to intercept his friend, just barely into the astral plane and then created the last rift he could muster, throwing Magnus’s spirit indiscriminately down. Shit that was so against all of the rules.

“That was quick!” Merle looked exhausted. “I was about to cast - if you didn’t come back-”

“I’m sure it would have been super rad, my man,” Taako interrupted absently, thinking about what the Astral Plane had looked like in the second and a fucking half he had been there. He swiped down with his umbrella and then tried again and again when nothing happened. “I think I’m out of rifts. Are you able to contact Pan?”

“No dice.”

“Fuck.” Taako found himself too distracted to concentrate. His home - his boyfriend - they were trapped in that shiney black goo and that could only mean the hunger had definitely already reached the Astral Plane and Taako had promised... He’d fucking promised.

Taako didn’t notice Lydia training an attack on him and found himself thrown yards across the room. He held his side and cursed, looking again for his friends - if Merle was ok - what kind of body Magnus had been dropped into...

Magnus finally, finally managed to throw Edward out of his body, but Taako noticed grimly that it had come at cost of killing it. Magnus wouldn’t be able to return to his own body after the fight and everything was getting harder and harder to fix by the moment.

But no sooner had the lich been vanquished than the umbrastaff jumped, pulling Taako’s hand with it, and consume Edward completely.

The reaper watched with wide, shocked, scared eyes as the umbrella jerked and thrashed almost out of his grip and then threw what was left of the lich onto the ground; nothing but dust, just as Taako as promised.

Taako’s expression didn’t soften or change when Lydia howled in rage and sorrow and then joined her brother, or when Magnus and Merle ran off to check on the state of the fighter’s body. He didn’t move at all until he felt a bony hand on his arm and his closest friend quietly calling his name.

“Barry,” Taako said quietly after a few more shaken moments. “The umbrastaff ate a lich.”

Barry’s expression was blank for a moment. “That makes sense, he was defeated mag- oh.”

“Yeah,” Taako’s voice wobbled.

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah.” Taako looked at the umbrella for a long time, remembering all of clues he’d somehow missed or ignored, all of the pieces he’d completely failed to put together. All of the maybe-not-random-misfires, how the umbrastaff only ever jammed once - when he was about to attack Barry, the random cryptic message… wondering what - who - was “here.”

“Lulu…” Taako asked the umbrella he didn’t realize he was clutching in both hands hard enough to whiten his knuckles. “Are you… in there?”

The point glowed bright and hot and then exploded in a fiery beam Taako knew he’d seen so, so many times over the last few years in hints and messages he’d been entirely too oblivious to recognize. Too resigned to giving up to pay mind to.

“YES!” they saw carved into the ground just before the illusion that was Wonderland began to disintegrate around them, before Merle and wooden-Magnus came back with the bell and all of the Magnus’s possessions. Before Taako’s vision became too bleary to focus on anything at all.

Chapter Text

Kravitz hadn’t noticed the dark, sticky oil until it was too late. It had come silent and fast, slamming into him and then pulling him under like a riptide, forcing away all higher mental capacity than ‘run’ and ‘escape’ and ‘survive.’

When he finally broke free and retreated to his home, still shaking with adrenaline and fear, thankfully out of the reach of whatever was attacking, Kravitz knew that was only a temporary reprieve. Eventually that thing would get here, too, and he would have to be prepared this time.

“Taako,” he called into his stone. Yes, the other reaper was on a different mission. One which he insisted was important to stopping the end of the world, but this attack here was immediate and terrible. “Babe, are you there?”

What he heard back was hollow and empty and still. Not even the gentle sound of air moving through an quiet room, just true silence. “Taako?” he tried once more, not accepting the total lack of response before getting up with a quiet, “Fine,” and collecting the various feathers and tools he’d need to contact the Raven Queen.

When that met him with the same outcome, Kravitz sat on his floor, staring at the useless circle he’d created and forced himself to not panic. He hadn’t felt this small or alone since he’d been alive, and it was a feeling Kravitz could have gone the rest of his days without. The dread was overwhelming. What hadn’t been completely taken over yet? Was the Stockade still standing? He’d have to go check, go get a better look at what this was. He’d never seen anything like it, never even heard of….

Kravitz froze, remembering where he had heard about this before. In desperate, repeated, scared detail. This was what Taako and Barry had warned him about so many times, this was the indescribable enemy they fled entire planes of existence to get away from. It had come. Was Taako somewhere else fighting it? Was he alone? Did his friends know what to do yet or did they still not remember?

He tried to run through everything he had been told over the last year, but the thing that seemed to stick now was what Taako had avoided talking about since that first meeting and Barry had sat down and tried to make as clear as possible.

They may just disappear.

“Like, we won’t necessarily want to. I KNOW Taako won’t want to, but if one of the seven of us takes the ship and goes we all just… go with. From your point of view we’d basically… dematerialize. And that would be it. We’re gone.” Kravitz had nodded in faked understanding at the time, but not he wished he’d asked questions, a million questions, instead of letting Barry rattle this all out while Taako was out of the room, avoiding the conversation.

But now the attack was happening. Here and now, and Kravitz was trapped on a different plane than his boyfriend.

Kravitz thought of the possibility of Barry’s hypothetical coming true, of Taako fighting and then fading out of existence, leaving Kravitz with pastel clothing and kitchenware and memories. Kravitz thought of never having the chance to say goodbye, and his chest hurt so much he thought he might be dying again.

He pulled himself up and grabbed his cloak. He’d need to fight this thing and he’d need to win, but he’d need help and without Taako or his goddess, Kravitz was afraid he would have to get a little creative. He’d have to break a few dozen rules.

**

Barry didn’t let the group celebrate or mourn or think too hard about anything. Not finding the last relic with minimal loss, not their traveling companions living through the ordeal, not Magnus’s replacement body, or whatever had made Taako make that expression after barely popping into the Astral Plane, not their suddenly severely limited magic, not about how Taako had apparently been carrying Lup around this whole time… There wasn’t time, they were on a schedule and they could talk and travel at the same time but right now they needed to get moving.

“OK guys I think we need to get the team together,” Barry tried to herd his friends away from the remains of Wonderland, but they made cats looks organized. “- shit this is so much easier now what you all remember talking around this was so goddamn hard,”

“It made you sound like a fucking jerk,”

“Yeah… Thanks, Merle. OK, but we need to get the team back together because I don’t think we can beat the hunger if we’re not all on the same page. I can’t get near the moon while I’m a lich so I need to get my body back and then you need to get me to drink the icker - we didn’t lose that, right? Great. Taako can’t get onto the base either - Luce set up some necromancy thing I guess when they fell out, she probably figured out we were snooping - so we’ll have to convince her to drop that and… Taako, man. I’m right there with you. We can fix this. But right now we need you to be here with us.”

“I’m here,” he replied simply, not looking up.

“Are you sure? Because believe me I know how you feel but-”

“I said I’m fucking here and you have NO idea how I feel, Barold. I’m down for whatever the plan is but fuck off with the condescending bullshit, got it?!” Taako snapped, making Barry jump just a little.

“Sorry man, I didn’t mean to...It’s just we only have a little time and…” the lich couldn’t find a meaningful way to finish the sentence. “I miss her, too. I can’t wait to get her back, too. But everything’s about to go to shit and we need you, Taako. Ok?”

“Sure,” he mumbled.

“Can you make a portal or do we need to walk to my place?”

“I’m outta rifts, my guy. Totally cut off and dried up. How ‘bout you, Merle? Healing work at all?”

“Not so great.”

“Awesome. So we’re boned.”

Barry glared at Taako. “SO we’re walking. That’s fine. It’s not too too far.”

“What about my body?” Magnus asked. “Or am I just like this now?”

“I think I can fix that maybe,” Barry was waving furiously towards the forest path now. “But not for a little while and first we need to get to my place can we please get going?”

“Hmm. Taako can you use any death magic to fix this faster?” Magnus shifted his attention over to the reaper.

“Oh fuck no, dear. I used that last bit that I had access to pulling you back out and at this point I’m hoping that if I just don’t look directly at you too much I can pretend that none of this soul-with-no-body bullshit is happening.”

Barry took up the lead and after only a few miles Taako found himself able to slip to the back of the group, trailing by a few yards, his friends always in sight but just a little ahead.

“You’re really in there?” he finally said quietly to the umbrastaff. He’d spoken to it so many times, but in long-winded admissions and complaints, all hypotheticals and rhetoricals. He’d never expected it to answer, but umbrella’s tip glowed brightly for a few moments.

“Do you wanna… once is yes twice is no?” It glowed again. Taako smiled and glance up to make sure the others were still nearby. “Have you been in here the whole time?” Yes, she said. “I’m a fucking idiot, huh?” Yes, again. Taako laughed. “Jerk. I mean, totally fair, but still, jerk. Ok, is there a way to get you out of here?” There was a pause and then another glow, but a faint one. Taako pursed his lips at how unsure this felt, how much of an educated guess she seemed to be making.

“So,” he decided to change the subject for a moment, come back to the meat of the situation in a bit. “Were you listening in on everything? Because I may owe you an apology.”

The umbrella blinked twice and then twice again after pause and then twice again. “OK GOOD! Because in retrospect I might have - you know what we don’t need to talk about it.”

Taako looked up again at the others. “I miss you, Lup. I know there’s not a great way to respond to that, but I miss the absolute shit out of you. I’ll figure out how to get you out of here.”

**

Taako sat on his crumpled pile of a robe near the fire, considering sleep or meditation or something, but his mind was buzzing. Merle - and somehow Magnus - had managed fall asleep, resting off their day. He hardly noticed Barry coming to sit next to him with a little hum. “So?”

“So what, Barold?”

“So are you okay? So what’s on your mind?”

Taako considered telling Barry to fuck off, nothing was wrong, but he looked the umbrastaff and thought again. “How do I get her out of here?”

“Shit man,” Barry thought for a moment. “There isn’t a spell for that?”

“If there was, Bar, don’t you think I would have done it by now?”

Barry shrugged. “Can you just...break it open?”

“What? The umbrella?”

“Yeah.”

Taako grimaced. “I’ve been thinking about that and maybe but also… What if I do that and it doesn’t let her out? What if it just destroys her and my only weapon.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve asked Kravitz for his two gold pieces on the matter?”

“No, and that’s the other fucking thing, Barold, I saw him when I was getting Magnus back and the Astral Plane is a mess. Like I think the hunger is attacking there first. I don’t know if Krav is going to be okay. And he’s… I’m…”

“Taako, It’s going to be ok.”

“I’m getting so fucking sick of losing everything important to me.”

**

The rest of the trip was uneventful. After forcing himself to meditate for an hour or two Taako was more willing to talk with his friends and by the time they reached Barry’s cave the group was chatting and joking as if no time had passed at all. Every dumb inside joke and silly goof came back and it felt like wearing his oldest, most comfortable cloak.

“Alright so I’m going to get this process going and basically I’m going to go back into a body that I’ve been growing for the last three or four months - and Mag, yeah if we have literally any of your genetic material from your body we can grow you a new one too, so many check your pillow for random hairs or something after we beat the hunger and we can work on that. Also I will be super duper naked so if one of you can grab some of my spare clothes from that chest and um…. Right I won’t remember anything. So convince me to drink some of -”

“Get pants, drink voidfish juice, we’ve got you covered, Barry.” Magnus said as Merle was already digging through the lich’s clothing.

“Shoo, Barold. Go do this thing. I’m wanna see what all of your necromancery looks like in practice,” Taako ushered him towards the vat of opaque liquid.

The lich sighed as much as a lich could and lowered himself into the pod as his friends collected his stuff and gave him a thumbs up.

**

Barry woke up confused and wet and completely submerged in liquid what the hell?! When the water - or whatever it was - sloshed away he took a deep, scared breath before seeing that he wasn’t alone in this… is this a cave? And why wasn’t he wearing any clothing?!

He tried to remember anything - anything at all about why he was here or who these guys were, but thinking about it too hard felt like nonsense screaming in his skull and he gave up before he was entirely out of the water.

“I’m… I don’t remember what I did last night, but I must have partied pretty hard to end up like-” He stopped when the elf started laughing. “Um. I don’t…”

“Barold. Darling. You wake up in a random vat of gross liquid and think ‘Boy howdy, I bet I had too much to drink?’ That’s delightful.”

He wanted to be offended at being laughed at, but honestly the whole thing felt more like being laughed with… he just didn’t get the joke yet. Or anymore. And the elf’s umbrellas was pulsing in faint glows and it made him feel warm for a reason he couldn’t begin to explain to himself. The dwarf was handing Barry his clothing and the mannequin… why had anyone thought this creepy science cave needed one of those? “Do... I know you guys?”

He jumped when the mannequin spoke. “Yeah, Bar. We’ve been friends for like a hundred years. Oh, drink thiiii fuck where is it?” The wooden figure was looking down at himself and spinning a little.

“I got it,” the elf held up a flask. “Here, my man. This’ll help.”

Barry finished latching his belt and took the flask but didn’t open it immediately. He didn’t even know who these people were, why would he accept some mystery drink? “I’m um… I’m not hungover or anything so I don’t think-”

“This is more like memory juice,” the dwarf said as if he thought the commentary was helpfully.

“I just don’t-”

“He said something about a coin! While we were walking!” the mannequin interrupted him. “It should talk to him or something. Check your pocket!” It turned toward Barry expectantly and he reflexively checked his pants pockets for…

“This one?” he held it up and it immediately began talking - telling Barry little details about himself. None of them secrets, but nothing things he wouldn’t tell strangers. Nothing that would even come up except to close friends or traveling companions. Then Barry’s heard his own voice describe the elf with the umbrella - Taako, apparently - he he heard him reassure himself that he could be trusted. Should be trusted, with his life if needed.

Barry looked at Taako, who shrugged back. “Your words, my man. Not mine.” And then Barry looked down at the flask.

“I mean. If I said that I should trust you.. I guess I should,” and he took a drink.

Everything came back, quickly and neatly. Barry shook off the uncomfortable feeling as if he’d just taken a shot and Merle motoined with some indignance. “Hey why was it so much easier for his memories to come back?”

“This - I’ve done this at least a buuuunch of times already,” Barry responded slowly, at the tail end of recovering completely from the memory return. “It’s easier when you’ve gone through it a couple of times. Like ...stretching something the first time is always hardest.”

“You’re ok though, right?” Magnus tilted his head in concern.

“Yeah, no… I’m great. It’s good to be alive again. Well, sort of.”

“Great, so we’re all back to normal, everyone remembers everyone and we’re all cool? Aces.” Taako said. “What’s next?”

“We should probably respond to our stones before Lucretia get suspicious,” Magnus suggested.

“Oh shit, you still have those! I totally forgot,” Barry groaned.

“Nah, my man. The suspicion ship has long since sailed.”

“We should probably just lean into it. Let her know what’s been going on and hope she’ll work with us before the hunger gets here… Get ahead of the problem,” Barry took the conversation back from Taako, not sure where he was on the bitter versus reasonable scale.

The three looked over to Taako who just shrugged, “Yeah, basically what he said.”

Merle pulled out his stone tentatively and spoke into it, “Um - Lucretia, you there?”

There was a pause on the other end and then the director’s voice, “Merle! Where are you two? How did the mission go?”

“It…” he looked over over at Magnus who shrugged dramatically as Taako snickerd. “Well, it sure did go… Listen, Lucy. Are you alone?”

There was another pause, longer this time, and the far-way sounds of footsteps and a door closing. “That.. sure is a nickname, Merle,” she finally said.

“Nah, it’s a good nickname, I always liked it. Also, we remember everything.”

“H-How?”

“Taako told Magnus how to do the thing. Also Barry’s here.”

“Hello,” Barry called from the background.

“Well. Holy shit. I owe you guys an explanation - I-”

“You’re cool with me,” Magnus came closer to Merle’s stone. “So maybe after we figure out what to do about the hunger. It’ll be back soon.”

“It’s back already,” Taako interrupted as the others looked up at him suddenly.

“What?” Magnus’s wooden head lifted.

“Yeah. Saw it when I popped through the Astral Plane to grab you. We need to get to fucking work.”

Magnus thought hard about his quick trip into the other plane, “Shit. I think you’re right.”

“Why is it there?” Barry shoved his hands in his pockets.

“No clue, my dude. Maybe It’s a closer plane than here. Regardless, we’re on a timer. Luce, can you take down whatever blocks you have against me and Barry - Barold does that shit affect you when you’re only a lich on the inside?”

“No idea.”

“Cool. Yeah, can you take those down so we can all figure this shit out?”

“Yes… She said quietly. I’ll do that right now. Do you have the bell?”

“Sure do,” Merle sang through.

“Fantastic. Great job. Call for an orb and I’ll make all the preparations around here so-”

“Luce,” Barry interrupted. “We’re going to need Davenport, too.”

“Yeah…” she sighed. “I know. We’ll see you guys soon.

**

They sat, a little crowded in the glass orb and mostly silent. Taako tapped a finger on the handle of his umbrella and glowered out the window to the right while Barry pressed his face against the opposite wall, looking at the view, the landscape, for any hint that the Hunger had made it to this plane.

Merle watched the two of them and remembered meeting them without his memories. Barry’s ghostly dramatics, Taako introducing himself on a beach as an acquaintance from a long time ago, nobody to worry about. He wondered how long they’d been at this for, worrying and preparing and being the only ones to remember each other. “It’s going to be ok,” he finally broke the silence.

Taako looked up with questioning eyes.

“We are,” he tried to clarify. “And your boyfriend. And Lup.”

Barry exhaled and eyed a loudly silent Taako. “After everything else… after how this has gone every other hundred times, how can you be sure?”

Merle shrugged. “I have faith.”

Chapter Text

When the orb landed back on the base the four found the platform unusually empty, save for Lucretia.

She was unusually quiet as they stepped out of the cannonball and onto the platform, nervously tapping a finger on her staff, but when Magnus stepped stepped out in his newly borrowed wooden body she breathed audibly and took a step forward.

“What happened?”

“Bad run in with some liches,” Taako said, sardonically. Lucretia closed her eyes and inhaled and pretended not to hear his dig.

“Sorta misplaced my body,” Magnus answered. “And then it disintegrated.”

“Are you… What can we…”

“I can fix that later, Lucretia,” Barry spoke up, standing off to the side closer to Taako, a little awkwardly. “But right now we need to figure out this end of the world thing.”

“Barry…”

“Hi, Luce. It’s been a uhh... while. Huh?”

“Barry. Everyone. I have so much to explain. I’m so-”

“Can we just get to work?” Taako’s arms were crossed and he tapped his foot impatiently.

“Are you ever going to for-”

“Where’s Davenport?” Taako’s interest in pleasantries waning by the moment.

Lucretia looked at her former friend with regret and hurt. He deserved to be angry, but the contempt in his voice made her chest hurt nontheless. “I didn’t have time to inoculate him before you would have arrived so we’ll … need to.”

Taako cringed inwardly. Helping the others through remembering was hard and that was before he’d realized he had been carrying Lup around as an accessory for years and saw his boyfriend and his entire home were drowning in darkness.

And Davenport had had more taken than any of them.

Taako had hoped to skip this. “Have fun with that,” he mumbled “Anywhere around here I can get a new weapon in the meantime?”

“There’s the Fantasy Costco, I guess…” Merle suggested, “But you have the umbrella, you looking for something else?”

“Yeah, feeling super weird about using my sister as a weapon, so…”

“Wait. What?” Lucretia turned back towards the elf.

Taako just quietly glared at her as Barry stepped in, wondering if there was a not embarrassing way to phrase this. “It looks like Lup got stuck... inside her umbrella.”

“How? Can you get her out?”

“Yup, wouldn’t have fucking done that already if I knew how, Luce. you cracked the code. Good job. Merle,” he didn’t want to hear what she had to say in response. “Wanna tell me where I can find the Costco?”

“Sure,” Merle said.

“Actually,” Magnus spoke up. “That reminds me. Barry, if you were going to grow a new me. Would blood and stuff work?”

“Y...es?” Barry squinted a little in confusion. “That will work great if we make it through the next twenty four hours… And you happen to have vials of blood laying around... Magnus, do you have vials of your own blood just laying around?”

“No,” Magnus’s wooden body shrugged. “But Garfield’s been collecting them so-”

“Wait. Hold. Wait. Back the fuuUUUuuck up a hot sec,” Taako held up his hands to motion for his friends to stop. “Who is this Garfield dude and why does he have have your blood?”

“The warlock who runs the store and I… didn’t really find out.”

Taako crossed his arms and eyed the resident expert. “Barold, dear. Professional opinion, does this sound like-”

“Necromancy? Yeah. You wanna go-”

“Blackmail the crap out of him? Fuck yeah, let’s go. Magnus, you’re with us. You guys… fix Davenport.”

**

It wasn’t a terribly long trip to the shop, but other people who passed the odd trio gave them accusatory looks, recognizing them as outsiders. Some even reached for their stones and mumbled into them, looking confused and taken aback at what they heard in response.

Magnus barely seemed to notice despite looking like he should be holding up clothing in a shop window, and if Taako did notice he clearly didn’t have any spare shits to give. But Barry felt every strange eye on him and wanted to shrink down and disappear into the floor. He didn’t generally miss being a lich, but right now he would have happily taken the opportunity to become an invisible specter for a few moments. Instead, Barry stood close to Taako, hoping the combined height and cloak would obscure him. It didn’t work, but Barry pretended anxiously.

“What the actual hell?” Taako said loudly as they walked through the door to the Fantasy Costco and the jingle played. “Does that happen every time?”

“Yeah!” Magnus half-laughed.

“Shit, man. I hate it,” the elf turned and locked the door once all of them were inside.

“Hey! You can’t do that!” a voice squeaked angrily from across the space and Taako pointed in the direction the voice came from while giving Magnus a questioning look.

“That’s him, yeah.”

“Fantastic. Barold, how many me-and-Lup scams have you been privy to?”

“Enough of them,” Barry smirked, understanding Taako’s subtext, the two turning to head towards Garfield as a young bespeckled boy tapped on the window, stopping them in their tracks, his little forehead pressed against the glass of the door.

“Uhhhh… who’s that?” Taako motioned at the door, wiggling his fingers.

“Oh, that’s Angus,” Magnus said. “He works for the bureau, too.”

“You guys hired a little kid?” Barry squinted.

“That seems sort of shitty,” Taako side-eyed Magnus. “But we’re on a schedule, let’s go,” and with that Taako was gone again, Barry following quickly behind.

A wooden Magnus shrugged at Angus and waved half heatedly before chasing his friends down.

“You can’t go around closing down other people’s stores,” apparently-Garfield said somewhat smugly as they approached, but did nothing to reopen his store.

Taako propped his elbows on the sales counter and leaned forward while Barry crossed his arms to the elf’s right in an almost-successful attempt looking threatening.

“We’ve got some private business, my guy,” Taako grinned with a glint that gave the shopkeep pause. “My main man Magnus tells me that you’ve been collecting certain bodily blood vials and here’s the thing, Garfield - it’s Garfield right? We’re going to need those.”

“Ahhha well I’m afraid that’s quite impossible.”

“Oh well don’t tell us you’ve used them,” Barry took a step toward the counter, trying to chanel every bit of his sometimes bodyguard persona. “Because that just smacks of some pretty heavy duty necromancy. Which is illegal, right Taako?”

“Mmm, It certainly is, Barold. The Raven Queen is very clear about how against the natural order of things that would be. But, that’s not what you’re up to, right Gar-Gar? Because that would be bad news and a nice warlock like you wouldn’t get mixed up with that sort of thing. Right?”

Garfield gave the loiterers in his store a once-over and grinned. A sparkly elf with a frilled parasol, a short, soft looking human in jeans and a t-shirt, and their pet dress mannequin? This would be no problem. “I might be, but I doubt either of you will be doing anything about it,” he shrugged. “So why don’t you three get the fuck out of my store?”

Taako looked over at Barry and smiled with a saccharine sweetness that the lich and the mannequin knew all too well before reaching out suddenly and grabbing the warlock by his shirt and pulling him towards Taako’s now skeletal face. “You miscalculated, my dude.”

‘Fuuuuuuck,’ Garfield thought, wide eyed. He certainly had miscalculated, but this guy didn’t look anything like… but he must be, that was the only way…"I don't have your friend's blood anymore."

"That's not what I wanted to hear, friend," Taako's reaper eyes glowed red. "Where did it go?"

"I used it....." Garfield squeaked quietly.

"Fantastic. Why don't you point us in the direction of whatever crafts project you used that on, then."

”Heeeeere ya go. It's in the back room,” he held up a small jagged looking key. “We cool?” he pressed with masked nervousness as Taako let him go and spun the key’s ring on his index finger of his other hand, suddenly a normal looking elf again.

“Depends on what we find, doesn’t it? And um…” he glanced at the giant sword in the case. Too much to use himself, but it would definitely be a look. Or certainly Magnus or Kravitz could find a use for it. “What kind of deals you’re willing to cut.”

**

“Hooooooly shit!” Taako yelled excitedly, waving his arms vaguely in the direction of Magnus’s cloned body, floating in necromancy goop.

Barry blinked at the scene. The vat was nicer than his - probably a newer model - but the upkeep wasn’t as good and the liquid inside wasn’t quite the right color… it must have taken weeks longer than it should of to grow this body. ‘Amature,’ he though. “This sure is lucky,” he mumbled.

“UUMMM WHY was he growing my body?!”

“Barry? Thoughts?” Taako cocked his head.

“No clue. Probably because he’s a friggen weirdo,” Barry said flatly. “But honestly, who cares? Let’s put Magnus back in there and meet up with everyone else.”

"Yeah, agreed," Taako shrugged and glanced back at Magnus. "Ready to hop in?"

“This doesn’t freak either of you out? I mean, I’m pretty excited to not be wood, too, but this is fucking weird.”

Taako shrugged, “Normal day at the office for me, Hombre”

“Same,” Barry said. “It’s just not my handiwork for once.”

“OK but on a scale of ‘fucking amateurs’ to ‘shit buddy, niiice,’ where does this rank?” Magnus watched Taako tilt his head back towards Barry with a crooked smile and sighed at the two as he moved to slide into the vat the same way he’d seen Barry do earlier that day.

What a day. What a wild goddamn day.

**

He opened his eyes cold and wet and confused and stiff like boots that were too new to have been broken in and comfortable. He didn’t know where he was… this wasn’t Fisher’s tank or a pool or a lake… and he didn’t remember jumping in any of those, anyway.

“-nerd,” Magnus heard when he was clear of the cloudy goop, looking at two people who he knew individually.

“Oh, like you don’t have feelings about good transmutation versus mediocre-” But he didn’t realize that they knew each other. He’d met them months apart and-

“HE RISES!” Taako threw his arms up dramatically while Barry rolled his eyes but smiled. -and wasn’t he dead? He died in Phandalin. He died really dead.

“Hiiiiii?” Magnus said, shaking off some of the water, becoming suddenly aware of how naked he was when Barry held out his own clothes towards him. What’s umm… going-”

“Long story,” Taako dug through the clothing pile in Barry’s arm, pulling the flask free. “Put those on and then drink this. Chop chop.”

“What is this?” Magnus asked as he fastened the last buckle and took the flask from Taako.

“Since when do you ask questions first, man? It’s voidfish juice.”

“Last one. Promise,” Barry added.

“And no hugs this time! We don’t have time for that shit and there’s a one-Taako-hug-per-year limit for you chuckefucks.”

**

It came easier this time, like telling a story for the second time, less jarring and sudden.

Magnus still had to sit down, though.

“You good?” Barry asked after a little more than a minute. “It shouldn’t take too long this time but if you need-”

“No, I’m good.”

“Good,” Taako said with an impatient little bounce. “We have a lot to do. Anything either of you want while I’m shaking that dude down for back-up weapons?”

“Actually…” Magnus gave him a cockeyed little smile. “Yeah. There totally is.”

“Excellent,” Taako sung, leading the way back to the shop, making a beeline for the shop-keep.

“Garfield. Gar. Gar-Gar. We’ve got problem,” he leaned over the counter and folded his fingers together neatly.

“Do we?” he matched Taako’s stance and glancing over at Magnus, now human again. “I hoped we’d be even.”

“Oh no way, Homie. Collecting blood is weird but overall ehhh... easy to ignore. Growing a body is a whole other dealie. And dude, I really, really want to know WHY you were growing a spare Magnus, but it’ll make it so much harder to look the other way on all of this later. And that’s what I want to do for you, buddy. Totally sweep this under the rug. Keep you out of necromancy baby jail.”

Garfield eyed him. There was a catch. There was always a catch… he was just usually on the other end. “So what’s the deal?”

“We’re going to completely clean you out starting with - Mags! What did you want? - starting with that crazy sword.”

“I’m trying to run a business here. You can’t just take my entire stock.”

"Yeah well you're also breaking the law just about as hard as you can over here," Taako dead-panned.

“And we’re trying to stop the end of the world,” Magnus added, somehow sneaking up on Taako, his ears twitching in surprise.

Garfield looked between the three men in his store in annoyed apprehension. “And when you do stop the end of the world - because I totally have complete faith in you and don’t plan on jumping ship to another plane, not at all-”

“Ooo, we should have phrased that differently,” Barry interrupted. “We actually mean the end of this entire Planer System… not just this particular world. Just… so you know.”

“Fantastic,” the shop-keep’s eyes narrowed a little further. “Well when you do that I’ll still need to make a living. So maybe there’s a middle ground-”

Taako groaned, untying a pouch from his belts. If his powers hadn't all but dried up this would have gone so, so differently. And even without them on any other day he would play this game all day long. But today...This was taking entirely too long. He dropped it on the counter between them with a muffled thnk. “Here. Middleground. Now scram. If I see you again - like ever again - I'm throwing your ass in the Stockade personally.”

Garfield studied the bag for a moment before opening it slightly and immediately snatching it away. “Pleasure doing business with you gentlemen,” and with a little pft and a puff of smoke, leaving a ring of the remaining store keys in where he'd stood.

“What did you give him?” Barry blinked.

“Cash money, I was sick of looking at his face. Start grabbing-”

Magnus was half way through pulling the sword down before giving it a gleeful experimental swing before Taako could finish the sentence.

Barry found more ingredients than he would have predicted, and Taako indiscriminately grabbed everything he had even a passing interest in before the met up back at the counter, tucking the nicest wand he could find between his hat and his ear for later.

“We good?”

They unlocked the door and slid it open as the jingle played again, and the child from before jumped in their path pointing an accusatory finger before noting Magnus. “Hey- Magnus, Sir!”

“Ango, hiiii,” Magnus stalled uselessly before being verbally steamrolled by a child.

“Who are they? And Where were you before? You didn’t go in with them.”

“They’re,” he looked back at the other two, “friends of mine. The Director hired them to help with something.”

“What was that mannequin with them?”

Magnus opened this mouth to answer, but all that game out was a surprised “GAH!” as the moon base lurched and shook suddenly as if it had been punched.

“Crap,” Barry looked around, panicked.

“It’s here,” Taako grabbed the handle of the umbrastaff a little tighter.

“We need to get to the others-” Magnus said, grabbing for Angus’s arm.

**

The trip between Lucretia’s office and the Costco wasn’t long, but the attack was immediate and relentless, and they hardly made it halfway before their path was blocked and they were forced to fight.

“Hey kid, you know any magic?” Taako pointed at the wand behind his ear. Angus shook his head frantically and Taako grimaced, of course not.

Magnus’s new weapon made his attacks look almost effortless as he cut through darkness, and Barry drew out symbols and letters in the air, forcing the hunger back or melting parts into nothing.

But when Taako held out the Umbrastaff to attack it swung up sharply, dragging his arm with it and then pulled itself back towards the ground with a crack that made Taako’s stomach lurch.

“Lup what the FUCK?!” he yelled, wide-eyed and panicked. “You’re going to break, you idiot.”

He felt his arm tugged up again and wrapped the other around the umbrella, tackling it and holding it still against his chest and tried to think. This was the one thing he couldn’t get wrong. Everything else, everything in the last five years he’d treated as fuck-up-able.
But not this.

“Listen,” Istus had said.

Taako exhaled sharply and pursed his lips. “Lup,” Maybe he’d just been thinking about this too hard. Maybe the simplest answer was right. “Are you totally sure about this?”

The umbrella’s point glowed once, bright and long.

“Alright…But if I destroy you right now I’m never forgiving either of us.”

A large void-black bird flew past Barry and straight towards the child who was, for some reason, hiding behind Taako instead of either of the larger people and before he could let himself think too hard Taako grasped the handle of the umbrella like a bat and swung as hard as he could at the attacker.

He wasn't as strong as either of his companions, but it was enough as the umbrastaff cracked in half. The dark bird disintegrated almost immediately just before the blast threw Taako and Angus halfway across the field in the direction of Lucretia’s office.

As soon as he hit the ground, chest down, shaken, a little dizzy, Taako tried to look back at where he had been standing less than a moment before but flames were weaving around the members of the bureau who had been unfortunate enough to be caught up in this, obliterating any trace of the hunger in the field as it went, but obscuring his view completely.

‘Where is she?!’ his ears rang in panic and heartache as the fire finished its journey and met back in the center, pulling itself into a humanoid form still burning and flickering around the edges.

Taako let out a manic, relieved sob as he pulled himself to his feet and just stared. He almost couldn't believe that the world around him was real anymore. After being lonely for so many years, after feeling like half of himself and not knowing why and then... And then knowing and forcing himself to move on. He'd given up on ever seeing her again years ago but now here he was, making eye contact with his sister for the first time in more than a decade.

The field was completely still for a moment before Lup rushed her brother, wrapping her only barely extinguished robe-covered arms around his neck with a force that almost threw Taako back off of his feet and whispered into his neck.

“I can’t believe you’re the fucking grim reaper.”

Chapter Text

Taako didn’t - couldn’t - move for a long time. He threw his arms back around the lich that had tackled herself on him and pretended that this wasn’t the worst, best, weirdest day he had in more than fifteen years.

“And I can’t believe it took you so long to figure it out! What is wrong with you?!”

Taako laughed and rolled his eyes. “OK Look you didn’t exactly make it obvious.”

“Are you kidding? I don’t know what else I could have done short leaving you detailed instructions.”

“Well why didn’t you do that?!” They were both laughing, Taako obviously misty, but for once making no effort to pretend otherwise and Lup was…

“Babe,” Barry said quiet as a prayer, wringing his hands just a little. “Babe, I-”

She grabbed his arm and pulled into them, squishing Barry up up against Taako in their hug. “I missed you so much. I missed all of you so much.”

“I knew I’d see you again. I - When I was -” Barry stammered. The years alone as a lich, knowing who was missing. The years as a human, feeling that emptiness and not knowing why, not really. The conversations with Taako, somebody to finally share his heartbreak with. A decade, long, sad, and painful without the person who made him feel alive even when he wasn’t. And now… “I couldn’t stand it. I’m going to blow myself up so I can hold you again.”

Angus looked toward Magnus awkwardly for a direction as the lich laughed and replied, but he was already gone, refusing to let a group-hug to un-joined in on, even if it was awkward and bony and a little singed.

“Ok, amigos,” Taako tried to break out of the center of the pile after another handful of seconds of this, suddenly claustrophobic. “We need to get back to … all of this whole disaster. Also there’s too many fucking people touching me.”

Lup gave her brother another squeeze before letting go. “Yes. Yes yes yes we have a lot of asses to kick.”

“We need to regroup with everyone else,” Barry tried to lead the conversation back to somewhere organized and useful and on point.

They agreed and hurried the rest of the way to Lucretia’s office, Lup elbowing Taako and grinning on the way. “You good?”

“Wuh? Yeah, great!” He wasn’t lying, but there was an uneasiness that Lup knew they would have to talk about at some point. “Just - it’s a lot. Everything is a lot.”

“Heck yeah, man. It really is.”

The Director’s office hadn’t received any of the benefits of Lup’s fiery return and Barry mumbled a curse as they walked into the all out assault on the rest of their team. Magnus called dibs on some monster Taako didn't look too closely at, running in and drawing his new sword, and Barry scurried to help Davenport back to his feet.

Taako took stock of the room as quickly as he could - it looked like they had tried to barricade the door but couldn’t make an effective wall in time. Davenport looked… back, fuck yeah. There were five things here attacking - and shit Taako had forgotten how weird some of those other planes were… Magnus and Merel’s friends from that disaster of a Candlenights were here and they… well they could have been doing a hell of a lot worse.

“Oh heck yeah,” Lup raised her arms as her hands caught fire. “Let’s wreck these jokers.”

Taako found himself grinning at her despite everything that was happening. This would be fun. Fighting next to Lup again would be fun, even if the world was ending and his only weapon right now was a disappointingly garden-variety wand, and the gods probably didn’t even know if Kravitz was ok right now. Even though he knew that her being a lich would be a lot to explain to Kravitz and the Raven Queen if - no, when - they finally locked the hunger away forever, for the first time in a year Taako finally felt like things were going to be alright. Everything was going to be ok.

A giant inky hand swiped and both dodged easily, Lup trailing sparks went and drawing its attention with small fireballs, nothing more than a distraction, Taako knew. “Hey!” she called at it. “Give me five!”

“I was going to say that!” Taako yelled, sending a magic missile from his bland new wand from the other side of the hand.

“Too slow!”

Taako stuck out his tongue as Lup vollied another series of flaming attacks and then stopped, taking a moment to look around the room and then close her eyes in concentration. Taako drew the hand’s attention back to himself with a series of blasts and barely dodged out of the way when it tried to grab him, the elf rolling to the ground before landing back on his feet in a crouch ready to send his own fire to meet Lup's half way.

But it didn’t work.

He looked at his wand, his brand new wand. “What the ffffff-” Only half of it was in his fist, the other half snapped and scattered across the room. “Shit.”

The hand took another swipe but never reached him, disintegrating as Lup’s flame exploding outward, consuming their enemy and then the next closest ones, too.

“Nice, Lu!”

“Obviously.”

**

They made quick work of the rest. With everyone back - with Lup back - this wave of attackers was nothing.

And that was the first thing the rest of the crew had noticed, that any of them could say as soon as the last bit of hunger was gone from the room.

“Lup,” Lucretia breathed, staring at her lost friend with big remorseful eyes. “I… I looked for so long. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh no sweat,” Lup shrugged. “I was in an umbrella, even my diggus brother didn’t think to look there. But I’m back now,” she continued, ignoring the indignant sound Taako made somewhere behind her. “We’re all back now. We need to figure out how to fight this thing and then… do that.”

“I know what to do,” Lucretia insisted. “I’ve already started. I’ll put my barrier around the world. I’m going to prot-”

“Luce, we… we can’t do that,” Barry said slowly, carefully.

“It’s gunna be the end of the world if you put that thing up,” Lup added.

She looked between them quickly and considered momentarily. “I can’t. There’s nothing you can say that’s going to make me stop this. I’ll save us all. I promise.”

“Not me.” Taako grumbled and she looked over at him with question and concern. “Like… I don’t get it Luce. Do you fucking hate me or something? After...everything. And you know where I live, right? Where all of my stuff and my job are? Where my boyfriend is? You’d be locking us away from that plane forever.”

“Taako. I’m sorry, but-”

“Where’s the ship?” Davenport interrupted, finally speaking up after silently watching them for so long.

“W-What?”

“The ship. We take the Light of Creation, we get on, and we go. The hunger will follow us, Taako and Lup, you’ll both be alive again. Everything goes back to normal and we try again.”

“No, goddamnit-” Taako spat.

“I’m still captain and it’s already attacking and we don’t have another plan!”

“Taako and I actually sort of do…” Barry said in a tone that Taako wished had been about fifty percent more confident. “We’ve been talking a lot about how to handle the hunger over the last year.”

“Fine. Ok,” Davenport rubbed his face. “What did you guys come up with? And does anyone else have anything?’

“Taako? Do you want to…” Barry trailed off at his friend’s glower.

“Sure. Whatever,” he said after another moment and a shrug. “We trap the hunger instead of the world.”

Lucretia blinked at him. “O-oh”

“Would that work?” the captain studied Taako’s carefully blank expression.

“Don’t see why not. Do it the same way we do with spirits and shit that don’t want to come to the Astral Plane. Same way Refuge was trapped. Probably same way Luce wants to trap the world.”

“We’ll have to weaken the absolute hell out of it first,” Barry explained, “But it’s doable. It works on smaller scales all the time. I mean… and Lucretia, you wouldn’t have to really… change your course at all. Just redirect.”

“Heck yeah, boys, I like it.” Lup said, looking between them and then back to the director. “Think you can do it?”

“Maybe… I mean, yes, probably. I hadn’t thought of…” She looked down for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, that would work. But, I would have to be - we would have to get up there, into the hunger - Guys, I’m sorry. I’ve been so myopic- I -”

“It’ll be fine,” Magnus put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. “Don’t be sorry. We’ll work this whole thing out.”

“Normally I’d encourage the team building you guys… but we really need to get back on track.” Davenport broke in, taking charge again. “Lucretia, you sure we can do this?” She nodded vigorously but with an expression that betrayed her confidence a little. The captain ignored that detail. “Great. Is this what we want to do then, team?”

“I do,” Merle said. “I have kids, I’m not abandoning this world.”

“Same,” Magnus agreed. “This is the Planer System Julia is in and I want to stay long enough to see her again.”

“Morbid. And for the record I think we should leave and I reserve the right to bolt if it’s looking bad. But if you’re all in agreement, we’ll fight. For as long as we can, at least. Where’s the ship and is it ready to fly? We’re going to need it no matter what.”

“I can show you. And it should be.”

“Great. Noelle, Carey, Killian, you’re in charge of securing the Bureau headquarters. We lose this base and we lose it all, Can you do that?”

“Leave it to us,” they were sprinting back into the main floor of base.

“You guys,” he turned to the rest of his crew. “Do you need to do anything to prepare your plan?”

Barry shook his head. “We just need to fight until you guys are ready.”

“Good, good. That’s good. We need backup - more people to help in the fight - to know what we’re fighting. Magnus, the voidfish -”

“Yeah, I’m going to get them now.”

“No, I mean. There’s no easy way to say this but you need to find a way to disrupt their memory altering field. And if you can’t you need to termi-”

“No. No no no.”

“Magnus, every second that they’re alive and making the world forget is a second where people - thousands of people - are dying at the hands of an enemy they can’t see.”

“You’re completely right, but I made a promise.” Magnus insisted. “Nothing -”

“I don’t care,” the captain cut him off. “I don’t care how you do it. But find a way to cancel whatever they’re using to block memories. We need to give this world a fighting chance.”

“Got it.”

“Good. That’s what you all are in charge of. Angus,” he looked over at the boy who had never heard him speak - not really - before today. “You’re with me and Lucretia.”

“Oh, that um.. Reminds me,” Barry said, drawing a line in the air with his wand as Davenport, Lucretia and Angus sped away. “If we’re gunna do this thing, we may as well make sure we’ve got every advantage that we could possibly get.”

They watched the line fold and unfold and turn into a box and open.

“Barold m’dear,” Taako said, picking up his glaive. It had been so long, he had gone through so many arcane focuses that he had almost forgotten about this weapon. “Could you have pulled these up any time in the last few years and just… didn’t?”

“Ahhaha” Barry chuckled nervously. “Honestly, I’d completely forgot about them. I grabbed them so long ago.”

“Follow up question,” Merle spoke up. “When and how?”

“Um guys? We can talk about this tomorrow.” Lup said with just a little edge of sarcasm around the edges. “Right now though...”

“I need to get to Fisher. And the baby,” Magnus finished.

“And we -” Barry started before his eyes widened a little. “Oh shit.”

“Wha-Oh shit,” Merle agreed seeing what Barry’s focus had been pulled to.

The judges, impossibly tall and dark, were on the horizon. Far and slow, but undeniable. Barry shivered, remembering their year turned to stone, all lost but Lucretia. He looked to Lup who was… smiling.

“Merle, Magnus. You go after Fisher’s baby. Taako and Barry, you’re with me. I have a cunning plan.”

**

Davenport ran his hands over the control panel of the ship - his ship. It had been so long. So, so painfully long, But this room, this chair, this console... the entire craft, felt like home. And his family was whole again. Older and hurt, and cracking around the edges, but together.

“How’s the bond engine looking?” he called behind him and after a moment Lucretia’s voice rang back.

“Good to go. We shouldn’t have a problem getting up there. Are you um… are you sure you’ll be able to maneuver this thing? It’s been a really long time.”

“Yeah. Absolutely. Leave it to me.”

“Um… Davenport, Sir?” Angus said, sitting in a chair much too big for him, one meant for Magnus. “What would you like me to do?”

“Yes, Angus… Tell me when that meter is in the green and then read off the numbers on the screen next to it.”

The boy nodded and hopped out of the chair, following the captain’s finger and Davenport watched him go, wondering if Angus would stay with the ship if they did leave. Some things did… most didn’t, but it would be better to try than to just leave him behind.

As the engine flicked and purred to life Davenport looked out of the bridge viewport at the hunger’s tendrils falling from the sky, dropping enemies in its wake and frowned.

‘I should leave,’ he thought. ‘I should take this ship and Angus and my crew and go.’

Sure, he knew Taako would likely never forgive him, that Magnus and Merle would be heartbroken. That Barry and Lup and Lucretia would be disappointed.

But they would survive.

“It’s green, sir!” Angus called.

“Excellent, Angus. Thank you. Read off that number for me and then get back in a chair and buckle up.”

Chapter Text

Taako pulled his hands off of the glass in doubt and disappointment and insecurity, groaning a little and turning to his sister for an answer.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Taako. You’ve gotta-”

Barry said something and Lup’s attention shifted to him and then back to Taako as he shrugged uselessly.

“Barry and I are going to take care of this - You keep trying babe. I know you can do this.”

He nodded back at the job before him and mumbled a half hearted agreement as Lup and Barry zipped off, volleying fireballs and attacks at whatever Barry had pointed out was approaching.

This was...

It was too much. It was miles of glass and Taako hadn’t done much magic that didn’t rely directly on his connection to the Raven Queen in so long. He was so out of practice and tired and drained. And maybe worst yet, embarrassed. Now that he did have his family back, he had managed to almost exclusively botch every attempt to be remotely useful since their reunion.

Taako took a hard inhale and closed his eyes in concentration, wishing he could call a mulligan on the entire day and try it again from the top.

“You can do it, Taako!” Lup called again from somewhere behind, and she sounded so sure and so supportive and Taako frowned, knowing she was wrong.

**

The elevator was probably descending at its usual speed, but it felt so, so slow and the flickering of the lights and the music made the trip feel longer and even more dire.

“Did you feel that?” Merle looked over to Magnus, cuddling the small voidfish in his arms like a baby, after the lights flickered away for an especially long moment.

“Yeah, weird.” Magnus agreed, but as the elevator came to a stop and the door opened he switching mental tracks, stepping out and drawing his sword at the same time.

“How did you get that crazy thing, by the way? I thought it was a bajillion gold.”

“Taako terrorized Garfield for me, it was actually pretty fu-”

Dark tendrils erupted out of the voidfish’s room, dripping water as they flew, stabbing at the two like knives. Magnus swung at them, severing quite a few before going looking for the source of the arms and rushing for Fisher’s tank.

Merle dodged the first volley of attacks at him and tried to follow the relative safety of Magnus and his sword. ‘Shit,’ he thought, ‘I should have borrowed that axe before he-’

He didn’t see the hit coming and hardly felt it, but he felt himself bounce off of the wall just to his left and put his hand to his face by instinct, numbly feeling warm stickiness before feeling any pain.

The hunger’s tendrils stopped suddenly, falling to the ground and Magnus appeared, but he looked weird... flat.

“Hey I - SHIT Merle what happened I was gone for four seconds are you okay can you heal that?!”

The dwarf's ears were ringing just slightly in shock, but started putting the pieces together.

“Mags. Did I lose a fucking eye?”

“Yeah… You can’t tell?”

“I think I’m in shock, dipshit,” he spat before grumbling at nobody in particular. “Ah, son of a bitch.”

“So you can’t heal that, then?”

“I mean I might on literally any other-”

The room went dark once more and Magnus felt Merle disappear beneath his hand, looking around for a moment when the light returned and his friend was unsurprisingly gone. “Ahh crap,” he sighed, getting up and going back to see Fisher and actually take stock of the room he hadn’t given himself an opportunity to truly look at. He had things to do even if he was suddenly on his own.

**

“Hi, Merle. You got a minute?”

“Maybe not the best time, buddy,” Merle said shortly, still holding his face, seeing John for the first time in thirty, maybe forty years.

“Ahh yes. Well, It may also be the only time so - What happened to your eye? Gods. What happened to your arm?”

“I was going to say ‘What happened to your complexion?” Merle laughed, trying to ignore the shock begin to wear off and the pain begin to sneak in.

John pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and handed it over. “It’s not much, old friend, but… We’re both a little worse for wear now, huh?”

**

There were so many factors.

There were just so many goddamn factors.

The only time they’d brought anything sentient onto the ship and successfully left the plane with it was the Voidfish, and that thing was an entire branch of science unto itself.

But nobody else they’d tried to bring had ever stayed. They had all dematerialized and disappeared and, well hopefully found themselves back on their home plane and not just shredded into light forever. They’d talked about experimenting with this, with what would allow them to keep somebody on board the ship from a plane. If the simplicity of the organism was the key, or if they wanted to go, or something else. They had formed so many hypotheses. But Davenport had vetoed the idea in the end. It felt cruel to play God, to treat people like science experiments.

Right now though, with Angus onboard, he wondered if the key was bringing somebody who they had big-B Bonded with. If that was the real reason Magnus had been able to bring the Voidfish. Because then, surely, Angus at least would be okay.

“Should we let the others know we’re ready for them?” Lucretia said, coming up behind the captain and taking a place at the control panel, reminding him that she’d managed to keep this thing safe and working and in the air on her own for an entire cycle.

And this cycle, this decade long cycle had been such a mess. The crew had spent years not knowing who they were, Barry was on the run, both of the twins had died…

Davenport flicked a few switches in preparation and considered Taako’s specific plea not to leave. The one member of the crew who didn’t get attached, who hardly spoke to anyone some cycles, who had referred to literally every living thing he had passed for more than fifty years as dust, had made a home and and cared about somebody. And they could travel for another hundred cycles and honestly, that may never happen again.It would destroy Taako, and Davenport felt a little bad even considering it after how many time throughout this cycle the elf had checked up on him and brought him treats and asked about him. Taako didn’t express himself well, but food was is language of love and he had brought so much of it before he had stopped coming to the base all together.

Shit.

They had to stay. They had to at least try. Damnit.

“Yeah. Let them know we’re good to go as soon as they are.”

Lucretia nodded and lifted her stone to her mouth. “Merle, Magnus, we’re ready with the Starblaster are you two ready?”

“Not sure where Merle is right now but - Shit,” Magnus said back, less than encouragingly. “But I’m a little tied up at the moment so give me fiiivvvv….ten?”

“Sure,” Lucretia sighed. “Merle? Status?”

There was nothing in response. A quiet hollow swish of air and a slight hum, but no Merle.

“Welp,” she looked over to the captain. “Thoughts?”

“Either we sit tight and wait, or we go out and join the fight and hook up with them when they’re done unleashing whatever disasters they’ve gotten themselves into. Going out is a risk, but so is leaving the ship in one place and hoping the hunger doesn’t find it.”

“I vote we go fight,” Angus squeaked from the seat behind them.

Davenport nodded. “All right then. Let’s give them hell.”

**

The bag wasn’t locked anymore. Taako blinked it at, studying the present he’d almost turned down from a goddess who wasn’t his and then looked back the glass that used to be Phandalin. He needed to do this, Lup was sure of that, and by extension so was Taako. Only, it was impossible. He wasn’t enough.

“Listen,” Istus had said. And he was listening, faithfully, to everything Lup said, and it wasn’t working. But now the goddess was talking, albeit quietly.

He reached into the small bag and pulled out a compact mirror and a long staff with a rounded flat end and a small hook. He squinted at it, wondering what this was, how something roughly as long as the umbrastaff had fit in this tiny bag. Why Istus had given him a piece of wood that he couldn’t name let alone what he was supposed to do with it.

“Kay,” Taako shrugged and hooked it onto his belts before opening up the compact.

**

“Well, it certainly is a plan.”

“Do you have a better one?” Kravitz snapped, immediately regretting it. The guards at the Stockade were doing what had been asked of them, and they were doing a more than commendable job. Especially given the circumstances. And on any other day he would have been so thankful for their dedication to the laws. But today he just needed their cooperation and their trust.

“No, sir…” Ray tried again. “But.. Well, letting out all of the prisoners seems.... I don’t know. Irresponsible and insane?”

“It’s not going to be all of them, just the ones I can probably reason with. It shouldn’t be any worse to get them back in than when that breakout happened earlier this year. But this time they’ll be on a short leash.”

The guard nodded despite his insecurity in this entire stupid, stupid idea. “You think they’re going to be reason-with-able?”

“Did it before. Well,” the reaper paused. “Well, Taako did.”

“Right. Where is he, anyway?”

“Dealing with that, hopefully,” Kravitz notioned vaguely outside.

“And um…. Not that I’m freaking the absolute hell out or anything. But what IS attacking us right now?”

“It’s - I don’t know, not really. Taako and… Well, Taako sort of described it as a void that eats everything in its path. Basically really bad bad news.”

Ray exhaled, ringing his hands. It didn’t sound like anything that the souls in this fortress would be able to stop, even if they were organized and willing to help. But it also didn’t sound like something that they were likely to walk away from, either. So what was there to lose?

“Cool. Great. That sounds terrifying as hell. How do you want to go about pulling out the ‘reasonable’ souls?”

“Ideally one of them will mediate for us. Where is Maureen Miller?”

**

What a time to be cooking.

What a ridiculous fucking time to be cooking.

But everything was ridiculous right now and Istus had said to listen and then she gave him a stagecoach and a stove so you know what? Why the hell not?

Taako chewed slowly, pleased at how delicious and simple it was. All in all a good food to share a name with. He’d have to convince Faerun that it was named after him thou-

Taako froze, mouth still full as his coach exploded in a truely cathartic display that left him surrounded by smoldering traces of the life that he’d been forced out of, that he didn’t remember if he had even liked.

“Holy shit are you okay?” Lup shouted at the sudden destruction.

“Yeah!” he yelled back, swallowing. “I’m pretty fucking great,” and he meant it. The magic he had suddenly found himself tapped into buzzed like a hive and filled him with an energy that he was pretty sure he could ride into space.

He expected the transmutation to work this time.

He didn’t expect it to be instantaneous. He didn’t expect to see a ghost of Phandalin rise out of the now blue glass. He didn’t expect to see Kravitz in the center, looking confused and panicked and maybe just the slightest bit disheveled.

“Babe!” Kravitz heard Taako’s voice call as he found himself being run at in a full sprint. The reaper barely picked himself off of the ground before having to catch his boyfriend mid-tackle, spinning around once with full arms and a relieved heart. “How did you do that?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m rad. How did you get out of that goopy shit? How is home? Is everything completely overrun with the hunger?”

“It was hard, like real hard. And it’s a… total mess,” He said slowly. “The house was okay last time I was there but that was a while ago and I was just at the Stockade witch is -” Kravitz trailed off, putting his hands on Taako’s cheeks. “I was so worried about you. I thought you might be gone - that everything might be gone. When I couldn’t contact you. Or the Raven Queen shit-”

“I think I fixed that part, so good news there. And I already told you, you’re stuck with me.”

Kravitz grinned much wider than he realized and pulled Taako in to his chest. “I love you so much. And I heard the rest of your story. I think everyone did.”

“Hah, shit. That’s a lot more information than I needed people to know about - Actually let’s ignore that for a sec we have to save the world.”

“Yes.”

“Oh! And I should introduce you to my sister,” he pointed across the glass to where Lup was eyeing one of the judges, too close to be comfortable.

“What’s up, Ghost Rider?” she called back before getting back to work.

Kravitz waved lazily. “She’s... Uh...”

“Yeah. We’ll need to talk about that, huh?”

“I guess,” he shrugged. “But at this point, nothing you could tell me would be surprising, Taako. Where was she, anyway?” he asked absently, summoning his scythe.

“In the umbrella.”

Kravitz paused and blinked at the elf.

“In the umbrella?”

“Yep.”

“The one that you’ve been carrying all over the place for years?”

“The very same.”

“And it didn’t occur - It - She was in our bedroom sometimes! Are you joking with me right now?”

“And you thought I was out of surprises,” Taako crossed his arms in faux smugness.

“You’re the worst.”

“Patently untrue. What’s the plan?”

Kravitz sighed, lifting his schythe again and drawing a rift as thousands of souls poured through with a scream. “I thought we could enlist some help from some of the ghosts in the Stockade in exchange for shortened sentences. I think they’re onboard.”

“Hell yeah,”

“But if you’re down a focus…”

“I have this,” Taako said, holding up his glaive. “It’s not from RQ or anything, but I think it’ll keep them in check.”

“It’ll have to do. And what’s that? New staff?” he motioned at the mystery branch hanging off of Taako’s belt.

“Honestly, no idea, my guy,” Taako glanced down and shrugged. “But It was a present from Istus, so I should probably keep it safe.”

“Mmm. Unlike the scythe.”

“Watch it.”

**

“You guys still there?” Manus into his stone riding the elevator back up to the main floor of the base, suddenly lonely, not knowing for sure where either voidfish was.

“Hello sir!” Angus answered. It wasn’t the voice he had expected to hear. “The Director and Davenport are busy fighting and piloting and they asked me to find out where you and Merle were when you were done so we can pick you up.”

“Oh. Um... No idea where Merle is, he sort of disappeared.” Magnus started, “But I’m still at headquarters. Taako and Lup and Barry are on the ground I think so-”

He heard the boy reiterate this to somebody who he barely couldn’t hear as Merle’s voice came back through with a cheerful, “Hey guys, what did I miss?”

“The Captain wants to know where you are, Merle sir…. Oh, and he’s glad you two aren’t dead.”

The dwarf laughed into his stone. “I’m in a wagon with some friends heading back toward the base.”

“How the hell did you get there?” Magnus chided him.

“I wish I knew!”

“Great. Guys, shut up for a moment,” Davenport said shortly. “We need to group back up so we can move into the meat of this plan. Call the others, everybody meet on the base in fifteen. Got it?”

“Ayeaye captain.”

Davenport rolled his eyes and tossed the stone back to Angus. “You know how to fight at all, kid?”

“I have my mini crossbow, sir.”

The captain nodded. Close enough.

**

“Where are the others?” Davenport looked at Magnus and Merle, who had both managed to meet back up on the base in the agreed upon time. But no sign of Lup or Barry or Taako.

Magnus shrugged and the captain groaned as Lucretia took her stone of farspeech out of her pocket. “You three going to join us?”

“Yeah yeah. Keep your pants on,” Taako’s voice rang back through. “We’ll be there in less than a second.”

And they were. A person sized portal appeared sliced into reality and the three missing members of the IPRE crew stepped through followed by Kravitz who closed up the hole behind himself and stood a little behind Taako.

“Hey! Don’t fear the reaper’s here!” Merle called. “What’s up, man?”

“Uh, hello again,” Kravitz waved, a little awkwardly. “How’s the new arm treating you?”

“Better than the eye!”

“Shit, dude. What happened?” Lup asked.

Taako met her sentence where it ended, “You know you have your healing magic back and stuff, right?”

“Yeah I-”

“He’s out of practice. Never healed anything before, doesn’t know how to start now.” Magnus cut the dwarf off.

“Excuse you! I’ve healed plenty of stuff. And, I tried. Nothing happened. Divine intervention or something.”

“Guys. I’m glad you’re all still in one piece, but can we get this show on the road?” Davenport motioned towards the Starblaster. “We have a lot of work still to do.”

“Right, yeah,” Lup look at the rest of her group and the, “I think me and Barry should stay down here and rally the troops. The rest of you got this.”

“You sure?” Lucretia frowned, but Lup nodded.

“Absolutely, Lucy.”

“And um... Actually. I’m staying on the ground, too. Kravitz and I have sort of our own thing going.”

“I see,” Davenport said without argument but not thrilled either. “If you’re all sure.”

“Yeah, totes.” Taako shrugged. “Besides if you need me for anything I can have Krav rift me up there in like two seconds. So six of one half dozen of the other no problem.”

“Fine. Angus,” the captain turned on his heel. “You should stay down here with them. You’ve been a huge help, but I think they’ll need you down here.

“Oh. Ok, Sir,” he said, tentatively looking over at the four total strangers in attendance.

As they finished their regroup and Davenport and Lucretia tried to herd the rest of the team onto the ship, Magnus distractingly trying to hand Angus something, Kravitz leaned towards Taako, quietly asking, “Are you sure you don’t want to go with them?”

“Totally sure, Jellybean.”

“But aren’t they sort of… your team?” Kravitz pushed. He didn’t want to be away from his boyfriend after how terrifying being seperated had been, and he definitely didn’t want to risk losing track of him again, for good this time. But holding him back felt bad in an entirely unique and new way.

“Yeah. They are.” The elf glanced over and where his sister was now trying to help Lucretia wrangle the boys onto the Starblaster. “But you and Barry and Lup are my team, too. And we’ve gotten pretty good at it over the last few years.”

Kravitz snorted. “In the most technical sense, I suppose. But as long as you’re positive.”

“One hundo percent, babe. Hey kid,” Taako crossed his arms and took the conversation on a hairpin turn as Angus approached.

“Y-Yes sir?” the boy stammered just slightly. No number of clues could have prepared him for a day of fighting alongside a pair of reapers and liches each.

“Are you sure you don’t know any magic?”

“Yes?” Angus said thoughtfully as the elf squinted at him. He wanted to learn more about the arcane, he always had. It was on his list of practical skills he would watch out for an opportunity to learn with cooking and taxes. But there had never been a suitable teacher or time. “Why do you ask?”

He was answered with a careless shrug and another look over at the two wearing red robes. “I dunno. Before I guess it was wishful thinking. Now, more like a gut feeling. Go find a magic teacher.”

“Oh. Ok, sir. I-”

“ALL RIGHT, GUYS!,” Lup’s ghostly formed bounded up behind the boy, making him jump in place just a little. “They said that you can have a crossbow or something?” Angus nodded and Lup grinned, terrifying and undead. “Hella! So we don’t need to tell you how to hold your own then? Nice. I like you. Let’s get back to kicking some ass, then.”

**

It was going well.

Surprisingly well.

Much better than they had anticipated.

But that wasn’t saying a lot considering the crew’s track record. Lucretia concentrated on her spell with only a few hums of anxiety and Davenport more than passively kept his eyes open for their a worst-case-scenario escape route.

Magnus summoned the Power Bear and Merle called Garfield and little by little it worked. The ties were cut and the hunger was being weakened string by string and the friends they had made were helping in quick bursts. But it wasn’t enough.

“We need more! Is there anyone you haven’t called yet?”

“I don’t know! I don’t think so…. You called a giant bear! That wasn’t enough?!”

“Apparently!” Magnus looked around and hummed in thought. They were still hurtling toward oblivion and they had been doing well, really really well, but they’d hit a wall and needed more and there wasn’t any. “Yeah man, I don’t know who else I’d even summon.”

“Y’know what?” Merle looked back toward the world, at the people fighting the hunger with everything they had, nothing but dots from this height. “I think we have somebody.”

**

“This isn’t too bad.”

“It’s not?” Kravitz eyed his boyfriend, smirking. “Or is this exactly as bad as you spent the year warning me?”

Taako shrugged before shooting a projection of his glaive towards the dark alien monster that he was helping a ghost take down. “I mean, it’s definitely more fucked than I was expecting, but like… weird fucked. Not bad fucked. This is - unf - the closest we’ve come to actually having a shot in hell.”

“I know that’s supposed to make me feel better babe but - oh shit, watch out” The warning was unnecessary. Taako was half way through a summersault out of the way of iridescent black blow, landing with an immediate spell of his own. “But you’re not making me feel any less-”

“Barfy?”

“Anxious.”

“Don’t be,” Taako said as the hunger’s monster disintegrated into the wind and he shot a thumbs-up at the soul he’d been working with. “We have the plan and it’s going pretty ok so far. Natch. Because I helped come up with it and I’m brilliant -”

“Yeah,” Kravitz said dryly, snarky comeback at the ready, looking back to Taako.

Or where Taako had been.

Where he had been standing not moments before was empty, silent, no evidence that the other reaper had been there at all.

“Where the fuck did he go?!” Kravitz motioned where the elf had been, yelling to the ghost. He shifted nervously with he only received a shrug in return and whipped around quickly to find the ship in the sky. It may have been there… a shiny speck zooming across the dark sky. But it could have also been a spell or a ghost or anything weird goddamn thing from that lab he thought he’d shut down earlier in the year.

‘Find Barry or Lup!’ he told himself. Where were they? Any evidence that the ship hadn’t left, taking his love with it.

**

“Um. Hi, dudes.” Taako blinked at Magnus and Merle, as the sudden wind threatened to knock him off balance and turned his braid into a whip. “Didn’t want to give me warning?”

“No time,” Merle pointed at the hunger, this time human. “That’s John and we need to kick his ass. Got any of that Raven Queen magic for him?”

“Yeah…” Taako glanced toward the stranger, gripping the glaive a little tighter. It wouldn’t be the same without the focus that had been charged specifically with her magic… but… “I can make something work.”

John threw his arms to his sides and a dark column of energy erupted towards the trio, but it was messy, erratic, angry and unfocused. They dodged as Taako vollied back with a fury of ice and hail. “Why don’t you just cool down?”

**

Barry and Lup were there, yards away with Angus, hurling fireballs and dark purple orbs or necromantic magic and surprisingly accurate crossbow bolts. Fighting their own fight, but they were there.

Kravtiz’s ears rang in residential panic despite the small reassurance and he looked back up at what was probably the ship again before forcing himself to draw in a deep, calming breath and choosing another piece of the hunger to drive back. Trust the plan, he told himself.

It didn’t work.

“Hey, bones. You ok?” Lup sounded so much like Taako.

The three were by him now. How long had he been lost in his own head? When had they finished with their fight of the moment and come over to where he was?”

“Where’s Taako?” Barry asked.

“I don’t - he disappeared - AH-”

Lup spun as a cone of flame erupted from her towards what looked like an eagle, but too large by four or five times. Kravitz had completely failed at verbalizing the incoming attack but Lup didn’t miss a beat, taking his cue and running with it. “I got this one, boys,” she nudged Barry as the bird shook the blast off and came again.

Barry nodded and then turned back to Kravitz. “He disappeared?” Kravitz nodded. “They probably needed him on the ship. He’s… if they had left-”

“You two would be gone too, I know.”

“Yeah, exactly. It’s still fine. While he’s gone,” the necromancer looked up at the swirl of spirits Kravitz had let his attention fall away from and grinned. “You want help with those guys? I’m pretty good with dead things.”

**

It didn’t take a lot.

Magnus and Merle had pushed the hunger so close to the edge, it had been coming apart at the seams before Taako showed up. But now it was game over. They were going to win.

If they could handle not blowing away in the process.

The two clung to Taako in an effort to anchor eachother down as John was pulled way and torn to dust, screaming in rage and frustration and hunger.

“I think - I think we did it!” Magnus shouted over the wind. As Taako opened his mouth to agree he felt something begin to pull itself from his belt and then suddenly give way to the pressure of the winds and begin to blow away.

It was the weird staff or pole or whatever had fallen out of the bag with his cooking cart. “Shit. Shit shit shit,” the reaper reached for it, missing and then spinning to try again.

Taako didn’t know what it was or why it had been given to him, but he did know that it was a present from a goddess of fate and if Istus thought he would need it…

He failed to grab it the second time, but it didn’t matter. As Taako dislodged himself from his friends and jumped into the wind it took him, and then Merele and then Magnus over the railing, away from the Starblaster and towards the ground.

Taako groped at Istus’s present again, just barely getting his hands around it and shifted in the wind towards his friends, hardly thinking as the ground came closer, not thinking as he grabbed Merle by the shirt and swiped down with his umbrastaff and shoved his friend through the rift.

Only, it wasn’t the umbrastaff. That had been destroyed, Lup had been trapped inside and now it was gone now. This was…’What the hell did she give me?!’ Taako gave less than a moment’s thought to before grabbing Magnus and unceremoniously throwing him to the bridge of the Starblaster the same way he had done for Merle.

Taako drew one more rift for himself. “Kravitz is going to shit when he sees what -”

Everything went black as something large and heavy struck the reaper, not giving him a chance to use the doorway he’d cut or notice how quickly the ground was moving towards him.

Chapter Text

Taako opened his eyes with a groan and pushed himself up to a kneeling position, trying to remember where he was or how he’d gotten there or what had happened.

Right.

Hunger. Falling. Apparently that stick was a goddess powered staff like his scythe had been. And then… Shit what happened after that?

He rubbed the back of his head and stood. Something told him that he should be in pain. And if he hadn’t been able to stop himself from falling hundreds of feet… yeah. Pain should have be an understatement.

“It’s good to see you again,” a voice sang from behind him. A voice that he recognized and liked and trusted, but couldn’t quiet place a name to before he finished turning. It may not have hurt, but his head felt like mashed vegetables and a near sleep fog.

“Istus. Hey. Hi.” He said, facing her now. “What’s uh… What’s going on? And where are we? Am I double dead?” The space around them may have stretched on forever. It was impossible to tell, the pure shadowless white all he could see in every direction. Almost like the time trapped in that one day with the chalice but perhaps… maybe more like the Raven Queen’s throne room.

“Where isn’t important, but we can get to it later. As far as the what; you did it. I owe you and your friends a debt, we all do. But that’s something we can address later, too. In the meantime, Taako, I just wanted to speak with you again before you woke up.”

“So I’m… sleeping?” he squinted in confusion.

“Perhaps a more restful word than it deserves, but sure.”

Taako chuckled a little nervously. Awesome, so this was going to suck. “Guessing I hit the ground pretty hard, then?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. But a piece of your ship, probably this big,” she held her hands a few feet apart, “hit you before the ground did. So I don’t think you were conscious for that.”

“The good news is that an appliance sized piece of ship sucker punched me?”

The goddess laughed, good natured and kind. “The good news is that your friends are safe and the hunger is gone. But I want to apologize for the ‘appliance sized piece of ship.’” She shrugged and looked vaguely out into the white for a moment. “And your friend’s eye. And your other friend’s body. Some things just… happen. They’ll always happen. They’re never not going to happen. Your death … we’ll discuss this more later, we don’t have much time now, but your death threw the wheels of fate for a bit of a loop. Some things happened out of order but in the end, they still happened.” Istus took a few steps forward and ran a finger through one of the longest pieces of the very confused elf’s bangs. “But you’ve been amazing, Taako. And I’m so glad you figured out how to use my gifts.”

Taako nodded numbly. “Yeah. Of course. Natch.”

The goddess smiled softly and chuckled. “All right, you should get back. We’ll continue this soon.”

**

“He needs a healer!”

“Yeah, have you seen one?”

“EXCUSE Me!”

“No, guys. He doesn’t. He’s dead already. You can’t heal dead. He needs-”

“Barry I am literally RIGHT HERE don’t you dare suggest necromancy.”

Taako pulled his eyes tighter shut and groaned.

“It doesn’t matter, dudes.” Lup’s voice cut in. Close by. Not quite as close at Kravitz's had been, but almost. “He’s waking up. Hey ‘Ko.” She said after a moment, gently tucking a loose piece of hair behind her brother’s ear. “How are you doing?”

“Fucking awesome,” he mumbled, opening his eyes experimentally. The world around him was coming into focus as slowly as it could and the voices of the people around him were barely recognizable. He made an honest attempt to sit up, but every inch of himself was too sore and angry and Taako found himself cradled in his boyfriend’s arms and deciding that this was fine, there was no reason to move anyway. “Yeah, I feel fantastic. Never better. Barely feels like I should die again at all. What about you jerks?”

“We saw God! Again!”

“Same hat. Which one?” Taako shifted as Merle’s general shape came a little more into focus.

“Jeffandrew!”

“That’s… I don’t know if that’s-” Kravitz started, eyebrows knitted in confusion.

“Not worth it, Bone Daddy,”

“Don’t call me that,” he mumbled.

“So uh,” Magnus walked over, the staff from Istus in hand. “Why’d you almost let yourself get splattered for a spindle?”

“It’s- Wait, that’s what that is?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Taako blinked. In retrospect, that made perfect sense. “Wait how the crap do you know that?”

“We had textiles in Raven’s Roost. Not everyone could get by on woodworking.”

“That sounds fake, but okay. It’s magic as hell and I think I need it.”

As everyone finished turning from vague blobs into defined person-shapes Taako noticed that the entire group was in attendance. Lucretia a little farther back, purposefully quiet. Davenport to her side, overseeing his crew. Barry was on the ground right next to Lup, seemingly making a face at Kravitz. The kid that didn’t know magic - ‘how didn’t he and why was this bothering me so much!?’ - to Magnus’s side.

“So, we like… won. Right?” Taako blinked, the exhaustion finally catching up with the soreness and the newly arrived migraine.

“Yeah. We did,” Lup reassured him. “Everything went just like you two said. I’m proud of you guys.”

“Tight. Krav, can we go home now?”

“Yeah, babe. Let’s go home.”

**

Taako slept for what felt like days, periodically interrupted by nightmares of falling or vague realizations that somebody was curled up around his back or the light pressure of somebody quietly sitting on the bed near him.

When a hand gently shook his shoulder Taako resisted consciousness as hard as he could, groaning and rolling farther into his veratible dragon’s hoard of pillows. But the shake continued.

“I swear, if you’re waking me up and I haven’t been asleep for at least a week I’m going to make you suffer.”

“I think that’s known as a coma,” Kravitz’s voice came back dryly. “But it has been something like eighteen hours and your family is trying their damndest to move in. So…”

Taako mumbled something directly into a pillow while rolling to face the direction the voice had come from. “Who’s trying to move in?”

“Basically all of them,” Kravitz sighed and sat next to the blanket lump that was his boyfriend. “Lucretia and Davenport were here for a while and left, had work to do on their own plane. But everyone else…”

“The four people who should offer to hang on the Astral Plane the least,”

“Right? That’s what I said. Especially your sister… which-”

“Fuck! Yeah. Right,” Taako started to sit up, blankets falling around him in a nest. “We should talk about - I wasn’t trying to keep the whole ‘surprise! She’s a lich!’ thing from you. I just didn’t… she was gone, y’know? So it wasn’t supposed to ever come up or I would have dropped that truth bomb about the time… When you started to get comfortable with Barry, probably.”

His face was carefully blank, patiently listening and waiting for the elf to finish explaining and re-explaining and over-explaining.

“You wanna know a secret?” he smiled when Taako finished. “I sort of assumed. After I met Barry - learned about his whole thing... the way the both of you talked about Lup. I figured there was a fifty-fifty chance something was up with her, too.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” the reaper shrugged and reached for Taako’s hand, running his thumb over the elf’s knuckles. “And when I heard all of your stories, I thought I’d get the rest of the lich story - how it happened, why, all of that. But it wasn’t there.”

“That sounds right. Lucy wasn’t there to write about it when everything went down. But remind me later to tell you about the best day ever, I can fill in those blanks for you. Buuut,” he stretched his still sore neck and shoulders. “Are all of those ghosts still running around the Material Plane? Do we have to take care of that?”

“Are you offering to do work?!”

“I am not.”

“Because it sounds like you’re offering to do work.”

“You wish. I’m clarifying that everything happened while I was asleep and I can go back to doing that exact thing again.”

Kravitz shook his head and smiled affectionately. “We took care of most of them. Some are being more difficult and I will need your help with them, but most of the heavy lifting-”

“Wait. Stop. Who is ‘we’?”

“Oh. Barry and Lup helped. And Maureen before she came back to this plane.”

“I have many questions, Pookums.”

“Pookums? Shit. That may be worse than - you know what? It doesn’t matter. Shoot.”

“So Lup and Barry. The Liches. Lup and Barry the Liches. That Lup and Barry. Helped you collect a bunch of ghosts with cabin fever?”

“Yes.”

“How the fuuuuck did that happen?”

“They both told me separately and repeatedly how, and this is a quote, “Good they are with dead things,” and you were down for the count and everybody else was busy trying to un-disaster this plane. So… here we are.”

Taako blinked and then laughed. “Those goth weirdos. Ok, what about everyone else?”

“Magnus and Merle are just hanging out. I think they kept half an eye on you when-”

“Three eyes, amirite?!”

“Yes. Exactly that. When we went ghost hunting. And the kids are - shit, I just don’t know. I’m just hoping they-”

“Which kids?” Taako squinted. Their house was the farthest thing from child-proof.

“Angus came with Lucretia and Davenport. I think he was going to leave with them, but then he hit it off with Merle’s two. So the three of them are some-fucking-where.”

Taako nodded along. There was a lot happening outside of his bedroom and the majority of himself wanted to go right back to sleep. The craziness of the remaining rogue ghosts and most of his family and his family’s family running amok was too much. A problem for future-Taako.

“They were worried about you,” Kravitz said quietly. “They love you a lot.”

“Yeah well,” Taako numbled, running his hands through his hair and looking towards the door. “I love them too.”

Kravitz smiled and pulled his boyfriend out of the blanket nest and into an uncomfortable lean of a hug. “I love you.”

“Obviously.” Taako mumbled out into his arm. “You tell them I said that, by the way-”

“I know. I won’t. Don’t worry.” Kravitz gave him one more squeeze before letting go again. “Now get out of bed. I need help kicking your family out and getting like twenty ghosts back in.”

**

The days passed in a whirlwind of collecting souls with Kravitz and long, tearful conversations late into the night with Lup. Formally meeting Merle’s children and actually getting to know Angus. Tight hugs and thanks from Davenport and repeated, long winded apologies from Lucretia, met with mumbled deflection. It was constant and exhausting and good and Kravitz watched, almost mesmerized as Taako interacted with his family as if they had never been apart. As context-less jokes and mannerisms the reaper had noticed over the years were suddenly met with equally confusing responses and laughter.

Kravitz watched the days begin unfold around his boyfriend, content to observe. He wasn’t part of this family, with their century of history and their decade worth of catching up to do. And besides, nobody wanted death to crash their party.

Until Lup demanded Kravitz break a tie and Barry quietly mumbled a bad joke for only Kravitz’s benefit. Until Magnus and Merel teased him and then each other as if the previous Candlenights hadn’t happened. Until Lucretia and Davenport formally introduced themselves, glad that Taako had managed to find somebody nice. “He doesn’t have the best track record.”

“Hah, yeah. I did notice that,” Kravitz grinned, awkwardly.

Until Taako dumped himself into Kravitz’s lap mid conversation, turning into boneless dead weight and melting a little when a pair of arms wrapped around him in response.

“Everything hurts and I’m tired.”

“Still?” Kravitz frowned.

“You try base jumping a thousand feed and tell me how it feels.”

“Point taken. Let’s go home.”

Taako just nodded silently in reply.

**

When he woke up again he was alone in bed, the faint sound of piano drifting lazily through the house and the smell of coffee vaguely wafting behind.

Taako stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, just listening to the familiar melodies. Putting off his responsibilities and social interactions for just a few moments longer. He rolled over towards his nightstand to reach for the coffee he knew was waiting for him there, but the raven sitting on the table gave him immediate pause.

“Hello…” he said slowly after a moment and the bird hopped towards him at the greeting, dropping a small rolled up piece of paper next to the elf and squawking in the most pleasant tone it could.

Taako sighed, sure he knew what this was and scooped the paper up before sitting upright and resting against the dark headboard. He reached for his coffee over the raven and took a long sip before unrolling the miniature scroll and reading the one line note over his mug.

You can’t avoid me forever, Taako. Your year is up.

He pursed his lips and put the cup back on the nightstand and read the note again and felt his chest fill unpleasantly and then read it a third time before crumpling the paper up and dropping it on his lap.

I’m not avoiding her,” he finally said as the raven cocked its head to the side, silently studying Taako and waiting for instructions. “Tell her that, kay? I just had shit to do. And uh… I’ll be there at the end of the day.”

The raven nodded once and squawked again before stretching out its wings to take off and disappearing.

Taako smoothed the note back out again and read it one more time in dread before burning it up in his hands, leaving no ash behind. He rolled the rest of the way out of the bed and picked his coffee back up, planning out the new, very last minute, best day ever.

**

Kravitz didn’t feel that anything was off when he found Taako making an absurdly large breakfast. Sure there was a lot of it, but his boyfriend was like that sometimes. Especially after days of not cooking anything at all.

The burst of affection and hours of quality time didn’t raise any red flags either. It had been days since they had any time just to themselves. And apparently they’d never truly been alone. It felt right, like Taako was finally beginning to act like himself, like things were beginning to get back to normal.

When Taako announced that he had a fun surprise planned and then put on more, nicer clothing and called Barry on his stone of farspeech before bringing the two couples to an opera, Kravitz’s eyebrows raised in suspicion.

“I just thought it would be fun,” Taako shrugged, making careful eye contact with nobody. They all knew him too well and he didn’t want to explain the situation just yet. They deserved a good evening.

Kravitz put his arm over Taako’s shoulder, periodically glancing over at him in suspicion, but there was nothing interesting or unusual to see besides the not-infrequent whispering and giggling with the lich to his left.

When the show ended Taako pulled Lup into a hug, awkward and bony and not as comforting as he would have liked, but it was the best he could do.

“Are you ok?” she whispered.

“Yeah. I just missed your dumb ass a lot.”

“Same, ‘Ko.”

**

They arrived home in deafening silence. Kravitz hung his cloak as Taako stared at the wall and thought about the best way to say -

“She called for you,”

It wasn’t a question. Kravitz still running his thumb over the fabric of his own cloak. His chest hurt and he felt so stupid. How hadn’t he noticed all day? How had he let himself forget what was coming?

“Yeah.”

“I’ll go with you,” he turned and ran his hands down the sides of Taako’s arms before taking his hands. “I’ll speak on your behalf. You-”

“No. Krav, no. This is a me problem. I beefed this one, I need to go deal with it. Besides,” he added when the reaper’s shoulder noticeably slumped and his jaw tightened. “Can you honestly say you haven’t already spoken to her about me this year?”

“I have. A few times. But this… I don’t want you to go.”

Taako laughed, soft and dry, looking at the floor. “I mean, neither do I, babe. But blowing her off would be sooo much friggen worse and besides, I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do,” Taako lied. “I promise, I’ll be fine.”

Kravitz made an unconvinced sound in his throat and pulled the elf to his chest.

They stood silent in each other arms for a long time, too scared to let go or say goodbye.

“Promise me...uh” Taako stammered finally, “Promise that you’ll make sure Barry and Lup are okay if I can’t.”

“I will,”

“I love you, Kravitz,”

**

“You actually came,” the goddess said from her throne, hands folded neatly in her lap, one knee perched over the other. The elf kneeled and she let them silently stay like that for a few moments before inviting him to rise. “I was afraid I was going to have to ask a second time.”

“Even I’m not stupid enough to ignore you,” Taako shrugged.

“I’m glad to hear it. How have your past few days been? Good to be reunited with your family, I hope.”

“Yeah,” Taako nodded along with the pleasantries numbly, completely emotionally coasting. “It’s been a little… fucking nuts. But yeah. Good.”

“Excellent. And your information about The Hunger panned out. You must be relieved to have finally driven it away after running for so many years.”

“It’s nice to not get our ass kicked for once, yeah.”

The Raven Queen nodded once. “I’m rewarding everyone under my jurisdiction who helped defend our planes from that thing. You all fought bravely and I would be remiss to let that go unacknowledged.”

“Oh?” Taako felt his ears perk up expencantly. “Cool, cool. Tight.”

“Care to wager a guess what your reward will be?”

“You’re letting me…. Off the hook?” the elf said carefully, slowly. Eyeing her nervously.

The goddess was quiet for a moment, unmoving, and unnerving for the reaper. “You won’t be going to the Stockade or worse, if that’s what you meant by ‘off the hook,’” she finally said. “I understand your motivations and am thankful for the efforts you made to save us all.”

“Great! That’s rad! Thanks a-”

“But,” her voice cut through him, leaving a momentary void, empty feeling its wake. “I think you know that your time as one of my bounty hunters has come to an end.”

Taako felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath him as the meaning of her words actually soaked through him.”

“Oh. I…” he managed, but nothing else came out.

“Taako, you didn’t really take the job seriously. Time and time again you put personal feelings ahead of the natural laws and on the most basic level you just didn’t seem to…. care.” She sighed and stood to approach him. “A version of yourself that cared more would have been perfect here, but… Taako, you had to know coming here that you weren’t going to leave my relm with your job in tact.”

The elf nodded and looked down and nodded again. “Yeah. Yeah, yeah, obviously.”

This is fine, he told himself. This better than I was expecting. But it did little to quell the disappointment he could feel himself falling into.

“Ok but, while I’m here. Lup and Barry-”

“The liches.”

“Yes,” Taako cringed. “They-”

“Are your family. You care about them very much and want to make sure they aren’t harmed.”

"...Yes.”

She waved his concerns off nonchalantly. “They fall within my jurisdiction and have rewards coming to them. You have my word that they will be fine.”

“And like… Lup is - if you want a version of me that cares more - she-”

The Raven Queen smiled knowingly, as the elf stammered. “She’ll be fine,” she repeated, laying a hand on Taako’s head.

And in an instant he felt his connection with that pool of magic go dry. Taako hadn’t felt powerless in years. Not since he had first died and…

“I’m just a ghost again now, right?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.”

And that feeling had sucked.

“So I’m stuck in this outfit forever again? At least it’s not as bad as last time, I guess.”

“Others have found a way around that.” the Raven Queen replied, not without sympathy. “I have faith you could, too.”

“This is going to throw a wrench in some of the more fun aspects of my relationship,” he feigned humor as hard as he could.

The Raven Queen dead-panned back at him. “You’re right, how absolutely unfair. Let’s send you to the Stockade after all.”

“Nopppe, this is fine. This is more than fine. So, where do I go now?”

“Wherever you want within the Astral Plane, I suppose, Taako. You could go home. I’m sure Kravitz is worried about you.”

Taako nodded. “Yeah, I think I’ll do that. Thanks again. See you around.”

She nodded. “It’s been a pleasure, Taako. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you were here, even if briefly.”

The elf thought something snarky as loud as he could, but kept it to himself, choosing instead to just turn and leave.

“One more thing, actually, before you go.” The goddess stopped him. “Istus wanted a word before you return to your own plane.”

**

“You made it, Taako!” Istus said as he stepped through the portal The Raven Queen had generously provided him with. “And right on time. Welcome back.”

Istus’s throne room was the antithesis of The Raven Queen’s in ever way, all bright colors and pastel decorations. There was so much light and small crystals threw rainbows everywhere. Taako made a mental note to insist that they redecorate one of the rooms back home. He had a hard day and he was sad and deserved a happy pastel rainbow room.

“My dear friend gave you some bad news?”

“It could have been worse,” Taako shrugged in deflection and distraction.

“You don’t need to pretend here,” she pressed with a kind voice and smile. “Or, you could. But I can see through it. Knowing everything that will happen is my entire job after all.”

“I mean, I guess yeah. It was sort of super sucky.”

Istus set her knitting down. “And, I imagine you must have so many questions still unanswered. We didn’t have much time to talk the other day.”

Taako nodded and then pointed at the floor. “Do you mind if I take a sit?”

“Not at all.”

“Great,” he said dropping himself onto the ground, cross-legged. “Because everything still fucking hurts. It hurts less, but it hurts. But yeah, questions…” he paused and looked around again. “I don’t even know. I guess why did you give me a magic spindle? And why can it do reaper stuff? What the hell does everyone mean that I ‘wasn’t supposed to die?’ I’ve been hearing that for years. How differently were things supposed to go?

Istus stood and approached Taako, taking a seat directly before him on the floor, her gowns billowing outward a little. “Things went wrong somewhere, Taako. And if you had never died back in Glamour Springs you would have lived another five or six hundred years.”

“Fantastic,” the elf mumbled, feeling angry and sad and cheated.

“But besides that… you’ll learn this more and more hopefully, but when things go wrong, we try to fix them so they catch back up later. The last few years would have been very different from your perspective, but for your friends, for these planes. Well, everything came together. You ended up in most of the same important places and did most of the same important things. You just happened to be dead when they happened.”

“No offense, I’m not understanding literally any of this,”

“That’s all right,” The goddess chuckled, “You will. With time. As far as your gift goes… where is it?”

“I left it at home.”

“Oh.” she blinked at him. “Why?”

“I didn’t want anything to happen to it if something shitty happened to me… So, Kravitz has it.”

“Oh! How thoughtful,” she clapped her hands together and smiled. “Well, honestly I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out by now, Taako. I gave you a staff in the shape important to my followers…”

She trailed off to let him continue the thought, but the elf just stared at her, waiting.

“And it does magic similar to your scythe…”

“Yeah, it makes rifts. How?”

“It’s…. Taako, you don’t think only the Raven Queen’s emissaries need to travel great distances quickly, do you?”

“N..no?”

“Mine do as well…”

“Okay.”

“You… you do know where I’m going with this by now, don’t you?”

“I think so. But last time I thought I knew what a goddess was telling me I was surprised canned, so I’m not making anymore assumptions today.”

She laughed and nodded at this. “Yes, I supposed that is fair. Taako, if you would like, I’d like you to take the job you should have had from the start. Be one of my emissaries.”

Taako grinned and started to nod, but… “What do you mean ‘that I should have had from the start’?

“You…” She took a breath and collected her thoughts. There weren’t good ways to explain this, but there were less confusing, less jarring ways. And the last week, the last five years, had already been so confusing and jarring… “You were always meant to be one of mine. I should have scooped you up immediately, but your dying too early changed a number of things and I wanted to assess the damage… see what had to be corrected. And by the time I was ready to make a move Kravitz was already smitten with you and you seemed happy in The Raven Queen’s court. But I’m patient and I knew you would end up here eventually... I hope any of this is making sense, Taako.”

“I mean… enough sense, I guess.” Taako was beginning to feel deflated and small and helpless. Fate was good and fine, he guessed. But if the five years were going to unfold more or less the same way they already had, none of his choices seemed to matter. His own death had been little more than a minor inconvenience. “Would anything have been different if I hadn’t bit it when I did? What about the people attending my show? Would I have met Kravitz at all? Have I ever had any fucking agency of my own?”

“Destiny is a complex thing… I wish I could describe it for you, but some things need to be experienced. Lived through, so to speak. You have always had agency of your own, you’ve always been your own person, but the universe needed you, too, and often your own choices and what we needed of you ran parallel, but other times… I needed to adjust to fit your choices and your luck. Your death was unfortunate, and yes, if you hadn’t died many others would have instead. As far as Kravitz goes, you would have met and fallen in love. It would have been different, but it would have happened with or without my interference. The truth is, Taako, most people don’t have specific destinies. They live out their lives and make their choices and very little has to be changed or compensated for. But you, everyone you came here with, is different.”

“So what if I say no? If I don’t take your job and I walk away from here and go back to the Astral Plane and pretend that I haven’t been some lost fucking toy for the last two hundred and twenty years.”

“You’ve… never been lost, Taako.”

“I haven’t?! Because it sounds like I was for the last five years and I didn’t even know who I was for the five before that. Don’t get me started about my hundred years of wandering around different planes. And you know what? Everything before that was sort of a hot trash heap, too! I definitely wasn’t found.”

Istus’s shoulders slumped a little and she nodded with resignation. “I can understand your perspective on this, Taako, and I wish I could say anything to abate your feelings or helplessness or better explain just how important you have always been to me. If you decide you don’t want to be part of my court and walk away from here, I’ll be disappointed - I have been looking forward to work with you. But I’ll readjust. It won’t be the same, but… you’re not choiceless in this situation, Taako. You never have been.”

He stared at her for a long time, considering his options and his feelings and fate. Taako considered going home to no responsibilities and an easy after-life. To getting final say in something, maybe the first thing, in his entire existence. But in the end the only thing that truly mattered was what he wanted. And it wasn’t spite or laziness. He liked doing something that mattered and he liked Istus, annoyed as he may be.

“Ugh. Fine, whatever. When do I start?”

The goddess’s smile showed no surprise, but her hair did a pleasant little bounce as she sat up straight. “Right away,” she said, taking his hand. “You’ll learn how to recognize when things have gone wrong, and that will come with time and practice, but for now I think something about a child you know has been bothering you?”

Taako thought for only a moment. “That twerp. He should know magic, shouldn’t he?”

Istus nodded. “Start there, I’ll teach you what I can and the rest will fall into place. For now though, your love has been worrying.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Oh, quick question… is there a dress code?”

**

Kravitz couldn’t find one comfortable place to worry. He’d tried being worried on the couch and in the observatory and in his music room, and every time found himself fidgeting nervously or pacing the room. He tried playing his piano and reading but his ears were buzzing too much to allow any amount of concentration and Taako had been gone too long, it had just been too long.

Granted, he hadn’t heard anything from The Raven Queen, and that could be a good sign. But he also didn’t hear anything from Taako and that felt wrong and filled his belly with lead and made him feel fortunate that breathing wasn’t really a necessity these days.

When he heard Taako’s voice from somewhere else in the house, speaking with somebody who he couldn’t quite hear and then the tell-tale sound of the elf’s shoes clicking on the floor Kravitz nearly cried in releaf, rushing to the room the voice was coming from and stopping short in the doorway.

Taako looked… fine. Totally alright, a little sad maybe, but that was almost normal some days.

“How did it go?” he asked after a moment to let go of all of his worst case scenarios and deepest fears.

“I um… I don’t think I’ll be doing any more bounty hunting with you. So that’s the bad news,” Taako shrugged. “But Istus offered me a gig. So I guess I need a new wardrobe?”

Kravitz stepped closer and wrapped him up in a hug. Taako’s words were nonchalant, but something about his tone...

“I’m so happy you’re still here.”

“Me too, Tater Tot,” Taako signed into his shoulder. “I was kind of a little scared shitless.”

“Whaaaaat?” Kravitz laughed as Taako swatted him on the side. “What’s wrong, then?”

“It’s a lot to manifest verbally I think,” Taako said pulling back just a little. “But I guess… You wanted me here, right? Or did I just crash at your house one day and never leave?”

“I don’t… What brought this on?” Kravitz blinked, not sure how to respond but Taako just shrugged and looked off to the side in response. “I think you belong here, Taako. And I’d be real fucking lonely if you weren’t.”

“I mean obviously,” Taako suddenly turned the tone joviel. “I’m a total catch. That was y’know... Just a dumb hypothetical.

“Mmhm,” the reaper hummed as his stone said something muffled and distant. “Ah, shit. Looks like I gotta go do some actual work today. You sure you’re not coming?”

“Oh yeah, babe. RQ fired me real hard.”

Kravitz groaned. “I’ve gotten really used to working with a partner. This sucks,”

“Maybe she’ll get somebody new to help you out. Now git going. I have my own thing to do.”

“Fine, fine,” he gave in, stealing a kiss. “I love you,”

Taako watched the reaper grab his cloak and disappear through a rift before going to retrieve his spindle from where he’d temporarily stored it, taking in the shape and thinking about his place in everything; his head buzzing with what-ifs and possible truths.

For every ounce of dissatisfaction and disappointment, for every bit of himself that felt small and out of control, a larger voice began cut through as he studied his new staff. Taako felt a calm take over as he held his spindle. This felt right. The same way that being with Kravitz or late night snack breaks with Lup and Magnus felt right. And when Taako closed his eyes and thought about what would come next, his future, the future of his family, he could almost hear the tranquility and happiness and ease; muffled laughter in the darkness, clattering of cookware, cheers and applause...

Taako cut a rift to the Material Plane, motivated and excited for reasons that weren’t survival or pride for the first time in maybe as long as he could remember. This is going to be good, he told himself, smiling as he stepped through. And he knew for an absolute fact that he was right.

Chapter Text

Lessons progressed so much better than Angus could have imagined. Taako didn’t look like he would have been a good teacher but...

Well, Angus knew he wouldn’t win awards for excellence in education any time soon, but magic certainly was being learned. And sometimes they would get visitors, ignoring Taako’s insistence that he didn’t allow auditing of his class, “You’re in the pool or you’re not, baby. None of this hanging out and distracting my pupil bullshit.”

The protests always died in the air when the lich brought perfect little pocket pies or the necromancer suggested something that sounded dangerous and stupid and fun or when the literal grim reaper showed up.

Angus wasn’t sure when they stopped being scary and turned into just Lup and Barry and Kravitz who he knew and liked and trusted. One day he just realized that having them visit brightened his day just a little the same way that Magnus did when he brought the dogs to play or Merle came with his kids.

He hadn’t solved a mystery - a real mystery, one that involved murder or grand theft or arson - in months, instead solving the great case of where Mookie was hiding and why he thought that would be a difficult spot to seek out. He learned magic and the piano and played with people his age and ate meals with people who enjoyed each other's company and if it weren’t for the fact that he still slept on a no-longer secret base on a faux moon he could have mistaken his life for normal. Angus hadn’t been able to say that about himself for years and years.

When Magnus showed up at the tail end of a lesson and sat in the grass with Johann, waiting quietly until the elf was done talking, Taako scoffed and made a sarcastic comment that they both knew actually meant, “Hello,” and “What’s up?” and “Thank you sincerely for not interrupting my class for once.”

“How’s it going, kiddo?”

“Good, sir!” Angus laughed through Johann licking his face and trying to sit in his lap. “Taako says I may be ready for next level spells next week.”

“Heck yeah! Nice!” Magnus grinned at Angus, his enthusiasm never faked or exaggerated to patronize the boy. “Hey though, I had a thought. You’re still staying in the dorms on the moon, right?”

“Yeah,” Angus nodded past a dog that was decidedly too large for his lap but trying to sit there anyway.

“Cool. Well here’s the thing. I just finished my house and if you want to move in….. You should move in.”

“Really?!”

“Your room has a giant desk and more bookshelf space than-”

“When!?” Angus was on his feet already, Johann looking displeased by the sudden loss of his seat.

“Right now, as soon as you grab your stuff.”

“Oh, um,” he looked at his bracer and considered calling for a sphere but Taako was already on his feet, spindle-staff in hand.

“I got this one, bubeleh” he said, drawing a doorway to Angus’s room many miles above. “That was real nice of you,” the elf added once the boy was through the rift and far from earshot.

“Eh.” Magnus sort of shrugged. “He’s a great kid. And Julia and I always talked about adopting eventually. So… y’know.”

“Yeah.” Taako said, not thinking too hard about what he was agreeing with, agreeing nonetheless. “Everything is fucking weird now.”

“What is?”

“Everything, man. I’m doing all of whatever this is, you and fucking Merle are both doing the parent thing, Lup and Barry would be selling the story that they’re a normal completely alive suburban couple if one of them wasn’t still a floating skeleton, and between you and me I’m like eighty six percent sure that they’re working on fixing that and don’t want me to know. Davenport took to the goddamn sea? Like, that’s bonkers, right?”

“And then there’s Lucy. Oh come on!” he groaned as Taako blew out a raspberry.

“I’m still mad.”

“Yeah, T. I know.”

“I’m allowed to still be mad.”

“How many more years do you plan on being mad for, though?”

Taako stayed silent for a few moments, not even shrugging in answer.

“I’ll talk to her soon,” he finally said quietly. “I keep getting these nagging feelings where - I just can’t avoid it - so I will. I just don’t fucking want to.”

“Ok good, because if she wasn’t getting invited to the wedding I was going to bring her as my plus one.” Magnus grinned and Taako threw a handful of grass him.

“Get the fuck outta here with that. We haven’t even picked a date yet.”

“That’s fine. I already started your presents - just make sure it’s at least a solid five or six months from now or they won’t be done.”

“Sure, nerd. Whatever,” Taako smirked as Angus came back through with an armful of books, a bag slung over each shoulder, a spare pair of glasses on his head and a magnifying glass sticking out of one pocket.

“I’m ready to go, sir!”

“Oh! Speaking of weddings.” Magnus said, taking a bag and most of the books from Angus. “You’ll be at Carey and Killian’s, right?”

“I’m pretty sure I got tricked into cooking for it.”

“Awesome.”

Taako waved them off with a playful, “You’d better practice. Moving isn’t an excuse to neglect your magic studies, young man,” and then sat alone as they disappeared from sight.

He stood and stretched out his back and cut another rift with the spindle, mentally practicing what he would say and his most nonchalant expressions. This was just one uncomfortable conversation with family. After saving the entire universe. After being hired by not one, but two goddesses. This would be fine. Just one last missing puzzle piece to snap into place. As he stepped through and let the doorway seal shut behind him the practice field sat calm and quiet and peaceful.

And everything felt right.