Chapter Text
Lup knew before it appeared.
This planet had hurt each of them, shown her her teammates at their worst, shown her what may yet become of them. It showed you your greatest fear, your biggest regret, and your proudest moment.
Lup knew what hers would be.
She held on to Barry’s hand and put her arm around Taako as they materialized in an illusory Starblaster. Not her regret, then. Not her proudest moment, either.
Her greatest fear.
Taako’s arm came around her shoulders and Magnus loomed at her back. His greatest fear had been watching, body broken, unable to protect them as they were slaughtered wholesale. He couldn’t protect them from this, either.
An illusory, fake, not real Taako appeared in front of her, unconscious on a complex arcane circle whose lines squiggled and shifted when she looked at them. It was hard to tell if he was breathing or not without approaching.
Lup did not approach.
“Okay, I died, great, let’s move on,” the real Taako called out to nothing. The image didn’t waver.
The fake Taako gasped for breath. His eyes opened, rolling, afraid, before focusing on her.
“Lulu?” he asked, and Lup stumbled forward. She could feel the tears running down her cheeks already.
“Hey, Koko,” she said, grinning tentatively, just like she did in her wildest fantasies, just like she did in her worst nightmares. “We did it.”
She touched his cheek and he felt real. Behind her, the real Taako made an aborted sound. Surprise, maybe. Hurt. This was the best case scenario, after all.
“Lup,” croaked the illusion. It wasn’t real. None of this was real.
“It’s okay now, it’s okay. You’re free,” she reassured him, and because she always imagined she would, she reached forward and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders.
“Don’t touch me!” He scrambled backwards on all fours, stumbling and hurried. She backed up until she hit Magnus and flinched. “Don’t, don’t touch me. Don’t you touch me.”
“I won’t,” she whispered.
“I—I’m free,” murmured Taako. He sat up to look at his hands, and finding no difference, sprung up to pace. “I’m finally—don’t look at me like that.”
He looked in the direction of the crew as a whole, but Lup knew she was the only person here in this scene with him. She shut her eyes, took a deep breath. Opened them again. The illusion wouldn’t pass if she didn’t watch it.
“Don’t look at me,” Taako said again. “Don’t—don’t you ever look at me. You, you—don’t ever look at me again!”
He hugged himself, mirroring Lup. Even in this, they were twins.
“You trapped me! You made me your fucking—I was your slave! Was it fun, huh, having poor, soulless, broken Taako hang off your elbow like a doll? Never alone, were you? You made sure of that!” he snarled, hands forming claws as he paced and gestured violently.
“Taako,” she said. No follow-up. No orders. Just, “Taako, please.”
“No! No, I’m not—never again! Never again.” He pulled on his hair, slowed to a halt. Stared at her suspiciously, poisonously. “Is this a game to you? You could have freed me ages ago. You could have tried harder. I was watching you, I know. You wanted me like this.”
And Lup felt every weekend off, every route unexplored, everything they’d agreed they wouldn’t try—but had they agreed? Or had Lup drawn a line in the sand and left Taako to watch it helplessly?
“Taako, babe—” she tried, but he snarled at her.
“I’m not your babe,” he hissed. “I’m not your anything. You made a fuckin’ mistake, letting me loose. But you know what?”
He strode forward, grabbed her by the collar, smiling cruelly. Vengeful.
He seemed taller, now. Or maybe he’d stopped making himself small.
“You’re not going to live to regret—”
Lup cried out as her brother dropped her, staggered; fell to his knees, clutching his chest. A fireball smoked out of it.
Another Taako walked stiffly to him, drawn up to his full height, wand smoking. He set his foot on his shoulder and pushed him to the floor.
“You made my sister cry, you son of a bitch,” Taako—the real Taako, her brother, she loves him so much, may every god bend the world to keep this from being her real future—hissed, and cast magic missile. The final nail in the coffin.
The Starblaster was gone, the other Taako was gone, and all that was left was the somber crew and her furious, precious brother.
He stood over where his corpse had been for a moment, shaking with rage. Barry reached for her but she pushed him away. She would face this alone.
Taako glared at their audience before turning to face her. She couldn’t help but flinch as he approached. It hadn’t even been that bad—they must have cut some of it for time’s sake. He hadn’t even said the bit about not being her brother.
They hadn’t even started on the end where he let her live.
She trembled, and Taako quaked.
He held out his arms. She sprinted the rest of the distance, tears running anew down her face. She hated crying. Taako never knew what to do when she cried.
Just this once, though, he seemed to have figured it out, because he enveloped her in his red robe and held tight, and she held tighter still and sobbed her apologies into his shoulder. For crying, for being put in charge of him, for not finding a solution, for living past that stupid bandit raid when she’d been, what, fourty—
“Don’t you ever,” Taako growled. “Don’t you ever apologize for living, Lup. Don’t do that.”
He rubbed her back too hard and it kind of hurt, but she had to be squeezing the breath out of him and he hadn’t complained. He never complained. He couldn’t complain.
“Gods I’m so sorry, Taako, I’m so sorry,” she blurted into his shoulder, again, uselessly. It was so stupid. She felt bad for not freeing him and here she was making him comfort her. She was so—
He caught her face in his hands, leaned his forehead against hers.
“There is nothing in this world, Lup,” he said, “Nothing in any other. Nothing at all that I regret less than being put with you. You’ve given me the world, Lup. You told me I was a person and you made me believe it.”
He moved his arms back to squeeze her shoulders, but he didn’t move his face, so she didn’t, either.
“I will never forget what you’ve done for me. I will always be so, so grateful that you are my sister. That illusion was a stupid, bullshit illusion that doesn’t know fuck-all about us. I will love you until I die,” Taako promised. He smiled wryly. “Or until I am rendered incapable of love. Here’s for the sweet embrace of death, though, am I right?”
He winked at her and she punched him in the shoulder. Hard.
“Don’t even joke about that, you asshole,” she gasped, giggling and snorting and still crying a little bit. That was her brother. That was her brother, and he was trying. “You can’t—you’re such a dick! I take it back, my real fear is being stuck with this dum-dum for the rest of my life!”
Taako repeated the wink, exaggerated this time.
“Oh no, your worst fears, they’ve already come true,” he gasped dramatically. “Whatever will we do? It’s too late to save you now!”
He tried to get her in a headlock and she wrestled him down to the floor. Lying on his back like his double had, when he’d killed it for hurting her.
“Vengeance will be mine!” she cried, and mussed his hair all to hell.
Yeah, she was scared as hell. Always. But she had her brother and her crew behind her, and that made her unstoppable.