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When she asks, he doesn’t really question her. Lup is his sister, his twin, he’d do anything for her.
(If this made her safer, in some roundabout way, he’d fucking do it.)
No question.
This, on the big scale, is fucking easy. Making Lup happy is something he fucking loves. But, how to make it perfect? How to make it better than anything else?
She laughs, and she grins so hard, and it’s easy to let himself get swept up in her joy, because he plans a bomb ass perfect day. She looks fucking gorgeous lit by the glow of an inferno.
The conjured turkey tastes great. Even if Barry did fucking try to baste it.
The bottle of Goose is finished long before it disappears. Taako’s head is comfortably fuzzy, and his ears are full of the sound of Lup’s laughter, and his heart is tied up in his throat.
He is terrified of losing her.
He always has been. But before it was an abstract fear, the kind that he couldn’t bear to look at straight on, the kind he had nightmares about as a kid on the streets. He had visions of being alone - truly, completely - but he always woke to see her right there beside him, and the light of a new day they would conquer together made his fears seem so small.
Now, the fear is staring him down. There is nowhere to escape its view.
He remembers what he told Barry, all those years (decades, now) ago.
“You have what so many people in love never have enough of. You have time - all the time in the world.”
He had felt so invincible - sure, death hurt, no fucking joke about that, but it never lasted. Why be scared of something that you had already faced, and come out the other side of untouched? Death didn’t seem to have any hold on them, so fuck that. Who needs to be scared of something that can’t hurt you?
But now, who the fuck knows how much later, time was slipping so rapidly out of his hands. If he lost her here, there would be no reset. She’d never come back, ripped apart by her own mind, her own magic. (He’d never been so upset that they were fucking awesome wizards before now)
For a long minute, he was angry at her. How dare she choose Barry and not him? They’d been together their whole fucking lives! They didn’t meet Barry until like 2 months before this clusterfuck!
But, Barry makes Lup radiantly happy.
(Has he ever done that, before today? He can’t recall, though the boozy haze, and that makes him furious and ashamed. Of course he makes her happy, but Barry is something else. He could never doubt that he was important, but Barry holds her heart. He won’t begrudge her that. Never could.)
If this went wrong, he would lose her. He would lose his heart, the most important part of him. She was all that kept him together, some days. What would be left of him if she was gone? He’s a dumb ass without her, mostly. He’d be a mess, and that would be a shame, because he could be so much more than that. They were better - best- as a team.
Taako loves Lup a stupid amount. He knows it, she knows it, the whole crew would be blind not to know it by now. He’d love her as a lich, he’d love her as a mortal, he’d love the abstract concept of her, even. He’d love her enough to keep her grounded. He could do that much, after all she was doing for him.
If anyone could save them, it would be Lup. She was too stubborn to ever quit, no matter the cost. She’d break the world for them (for him). And after, when they were out, and the hunger was gone, and they could just live like normal fucking people, he’d find her, and fix all the parts of herself she had broken. Because they were a team, they were better together, and he’d break the world for her too. He’d fix her and Barry and make sure she never did something this risky without him again.
After all, they could never forget each other.
They were the same, at their cores. Had a shared essence. Lup would be alright, because she was his whole heart, and they were the same. He’d be by her side, to remind her, and even if things went wrong, he’d fix it, and she’d be alright.
She could never forget him. He could never forget Lup.