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“Is this the part where we start talking about our tragic backstories?”
The night had been quiet, uneventful after the trio’s battle-filled day. It hadn’t been an expected bout of fighting, either. That they were usually okay with-- It didn’t take any of them long to get amped up about fighting for money, honestly. But this had been entirely a surprise and was therefore probably pretty unlikely to yield monetary gain for them. This fact was perfectly fine for one Magnus Burnsides, Lawful Good Extraordinaire. But for Merle and Taako it left things a bit more of a disappointment.
They could still appreciate the night, though.
Quiet and without a cloud in the sky, the crackling embers of their fire occasionally shot a spark into the air, twisting on their little pillar of smoke until it extinguished amongst the many stars shining bright above them. They were still a day’s walk from the nearest city, two days from the nearest village. It was probably good they’d taken out the Orc encampment when they had, since they had apparently been making their way to the village…But also because less lights meant a better view of the sky.
Fat from a thick slice of beef roasting slowly on the fire sizzled and burnt, crackling through the air and disturbing the relative quiet of their camp.
“What?” That came from Magnus, having just returned from a nearby stream, hair wet and dripping even as he dragged a towel over his face, shaking his head like a dog to alleviate most of the moisture from his hair.
Merle piped up again, from his position leaning against the trunk of a tree, hand roaming appreciatively over the knots at the base of the bark. “Our backstories. Usually when everyone’s around at night, they look at the sky and talk about their traumas. Get into the shit, you know?”
Taako, three fingers deep in his own braid, let out a lilting, bemused sound, not looking up from the spit, where a shimmering rose-gold mage’s hand was responsible for making sure their food didn’t fucking burn. “Yeah, good luck with that, my man-- I ain’t got one.”
Wrinkling his nose, Merle rolled his eyes, “Bullfarts you don’t. C’mon,” he pried, though his heart wasn’t in it. Still, he shifted forward, one hand tugging at his open vest to loosen it from the snag it caught on the wood behind him. His other hand ducked low to gently move the pipe that’d been sitting next to him, careful not to break the delicate glass.
“Yeah, totally, sure… Sure,” Taako drawled slowly, finally casting a weary look over at the old man, narrowing his eyes. “You first.”
At that Merle let out a sputter, apparently surprised that his words had somehow been thrown back at him. “Wha-- No, me? I don’t wanna talk about that crap. Magnus should go first.”
Magnus was rummaging through his bag, apparently trying to find clothes that would work for sleeping as well as waking up and going the next day-- Which was kind of all of them. When they were in the woods as they were, he couldn’t sleep how he really wanted, shirtless, and most of his stuff was comfortable enough… What mattered was the smell. Apparently finding something amenable, he tugged it on over his head, tugging a hand through the close crop of hair he had to ensure the tight curls still hugged his head. He didn’t seem to be aware he was even mentioned again until he glanced up, four eyes on him.
“Wait-- What, me? It was your idea!” At least Magnus had the decency to be appalled. Not that he’d ever really shied away from talking about his happy upbringing, but when it got messy he was… Not so keen.
Speaking of not so keen, he ducked back into the forest to tug on some proper pants-- The flimsy cloth ones he’d worn out of the water and back to camp just weren’t something he could comfortably sleep in, not if they were going to spend the night in the unguarded woods.
Taako grinned, shark-like and predatory as he watched Magnus recede into the dark of the forest. Cute. He didn’t even really hide behind a tree, probably thinking being far away would matter. But then, he always seemed to forget that both Merle and Taako had the ability to see in the dark. If it wasn’t for a carefully-placed cockblock of a branch, the show would’ve been even better.
The sharp click of a tongue dragged the elf back to the center of the camp, where Merle had been watching appreciatively too, but opted for a bit of a vocal confirmation. “That boy still can’t remember we can see him, you reckon?” He mused, tearing his gaze away to tap the ash out of his pipe and tuck it safely and gingerly back into a pocket.
“Mm, I reckon,” Taako practically purred, and felt the warmth of another body joining his own, deeply tanned skin sliding into his field of view as Merle settled himself next to the elf, reaching over to manually rotate the steak which had faltered a bit in its careful pattern.
Roused from his distraction, the wizard returned to his previous task of taming his hair into a thick braid, eyeing the forceful takeover of his job, ignoring the thigh that was now very much in his space.
A large arm appeared from seemingly nowhere, wrapping easily around both Taako and Merle’s shoulders-- Though catching more on the latter’s throat-- as the pair were pulled into Magnus’ chest. The human took a large breath in through his nose, groaning in appreciation just as his stomach chimed in with a gurgling roar, “Oh, Hell, yeah. We eating or not?”
--
When Taako woke it was with a start, a whirlwind of destruction and death in his eye. A crowd of forty gasping and clawing at their throats, falling to their knees. The quiet tears of a halfling girl into the shoulder of a stoic-looking half-orc, as flames begin to engulf their toes. A crumbling laboratory, bodies petrified in beautiful crystal, slowly sinking into the ocean.
The elf wasn’t one for nightmares or regrets, but when they hit, they hit fucking hard.
Suffocating, Taako pressed against the binds holding him to the floor, yanking at them fruitlessly to get away, to break free-- And it was only when, out of desperation, a shimmering blast of rose gold left his body and broke the hold on him. With a clatter he was free, and he stood, jerking away and up onto his feet.
He desperately looked around, trying to decipher where he was and what in the Hell he was doing here, how he’d gotten here and where he could go. Taako took in the fire, the three bedrolls, messily spread on the ground--
And then the binds were back, hard and unforgiving around his torso, arms locked to his sides. And it was with a hideously sickening feeling that he saw a wall of shimmering green to gold spread through the dim clearing, evaporating his own rose and distilling what threatened to launch from his fingers a second time.
It was only when he let himself gasp a breath that noise returned all at once. There was a voice in Taako’s ear, a low, comforting rumble that resounded even through his back, the arms holding him tight, but not crushing. “I got you dude, it’s okay, it’s okay…” A peaceful mantra right behind his ear, calming even as rough hair dragged along his throat, making his fingers twitch.
Another figure, this one in his field of vision. Short but broad, bearded and tanned and bespectacled, a concerned frown on his lips. “You with us, bud?” He said, hand glowing gold as he took Taako’s prone fingers with his own.
Almost instantly the fear threatening to choke the breath from Taako’s lips faded. The tickling in the back of his skull dulled and he went limp in the arms holding him up. “I’m-- ...Good,” Taako finally said, voice slow. Every breath was still a faltering hiccup, a force he couldn’t quite control as adrenaline seemed to seep from his pores.
“I’m gonna sit, ‘kay?” The voice behind him was still a rumble, but one Taako could recognize now. Magnus. Magnus and Merle. And, true to his word as always, the fighter gingerly sat, more coordinated than the elf would have given him credit for. He still did not move to let the other up, arms still wrapped warmly around him, more of a cradle than the straightjacket it had been before.
Merle stayed standing, eyes toward the sky, squinting at the stars as if they’d wronged him. But he sat shortly after, soundlessly taking another spot on Magnus’s thigh-- A motion the human supported by opening his arms, keeping the two encircled there.
“The spell’ll wear off soon,” Merle said lightly, even as Taako shifted to lean into a crook formed between Merle’s shoulder and Magnus’ chest, eyes drifting closed. “Sorry to do that to ya, kid.”
But this time, Taako didn’t answer with silence or a shaking breath. Magnus dragged a hand along his hip, thumb tracing circles along the bone where it protruded, while Merle played with a plait in the elf’s hair, small ribbons of vines worming their way into the mix and blooming, smoothing the flyaways and settling the hair. “Hell no,” He finally managed. “This is some good shit, my dude,” Taako said quietly with a small twist to his lips.
A beat of silence passed before Magnus bent his head down to kiss the top of Taako’s head, rough lips finding just-groomed hair with only a minor chiding noise from the dwarf who had just done the grooming. “You had us worried there for a second,” Magnus admitted, pulling away to plant another kiss at the long cartilage of an ear.
Waving a hand, Taako gestured vaguely upwards, sighing as he tucked his nose further into the human-dwarf crevice made just for him. “Not my fault,” he said staunchly. “Merle jinxed us.”
Another comical stutter came from Taako’s left, making him grin into Magnus’ shirt. “Fuck you, I did!” He protested angrily, eyebrows furrowed.
“You said that shit about the sky,” Magnus pointed out, voice dry. But there was a grin on his lips, nose tucking into Taako’s hair as he said it, arms squeezing the two closer to his chest, making only small noises from the dwarf and elf he was holding. Not that they would or could do very much to protest.
Struggling, the pair glanced up as Merle pressed in vain at both Taako and the Magnus’ arm, trying to dislodge from somewhere. “Well, exactly! I told you the stars did that! Makes everyone go all emotional, wanting to talk about their shit, I said so! That ain’t me!”
Hold tightening onto the rambunctious two, Magnus leaned back, aiming carefully for his pillow and the three bedrolls as he laid them back down. “Sounds like it was you,” he observed kindly. “Now I’m not one for magickin’, though, of course,” Magnus put on his best bumpkin voice for that, eyes on the treeline above them, sky forgotten in lieu of watching the shadows crisscross in the faint embers left of the fire.
Sighing blissfully, Taako grinned at the spat, even as Merle scrambled out of Magnus’ grip-- Not that he went far. For all he huffed and puffed and protested, he still let the fighter rope his arm around him again and pull him into his side. “You good, now?” Magnus asked Taako again as the elf shifted, tangling his legs with the human’s and drifting an arm over to fist loosely in Merle’s vest.
“Right as rain, hombre,” Taako said with a sleepy nod, rubbing his cheek over the exposed hair from Magnus’ shirt, glad the man smelled clean for once. It wasn’t the properly-scented clean that lotions and perfumes from the city could provide, but it was soap and fresh water and not sweat, so he considered it a win.
Vaguely, the elf heard Merle mutter to Pan about the stars and cliches, Magnus already snoring underneath him, large breaths shaking his entire self on the exhale. Taako counted backwards from twenty, eyes closing as he settled and began to drift into meditation.
It had been easier since finding them, even if the nightmares were worse.