Work Text:
The portal closed behind Taako with a loud pop. That’s all he knew; he couldn’t see anything. One moment, he’d been visiting Merle on the beach, sun shining brightly in his eyes and causing his hair to glow, the distant shrieking of children—his and Merle’s included as Mookie terrorized Angus—in the background, and then he was here. Wherever he was, it was not quite pitch black, but it might as well be for how ridiculously long it was taking for his eyes to adjust. He huffed, blowing his hair out of his face. So much for magic eyes, he thought sourly.
He sighed, already tiring of this, and took a cautious step forward, his arms swinging in a wide arc in an attempt to locate obstacles. His shins immediately banged into something hard, and now that his eyes were adjusting, he could see it was a plain wooden bedframe with a mattress, and a person, on top. Taako hissed in pain and the figure moved, propping up on two elbows and then shrinking back when Taako reflexively pulled out his wand, jabbing it in the figure’s face threateningly.
“Taako?” the figure croaked, his voice still heavy with sleep. “God, I’m still dreaming.”
Taako’s eyes had finally adjusted enough for him to see who he was dealing with, and he put his wand away. His hair had grown longer and his skin had cleared up beautifully, but he was still recognizable. It was his old pal Joaquin.
“Nope, hombre, you’re not dreaming. Ch’boy is here and in the flesh. You were having dreams about me, huh? Were they saucy?” Taako waggled his eyebrows. Then, without allowing Joaquin to respond, he kept talking, the magical wheels in his brain turning a mile a minute. “There must have been some energy left from the Day of Story and Song. Your dream converted that energy into another bond portal.”
Joaquin rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, then groaned. “You’re talking way too loud for a Sunday morning, Taako.”
“Morning?” Taako glanced around the room, noticing that the drawn curtains were outlined in light. “Your dumb portal broke my eyes! I couldn’t see shit for like ten minutes!”
Joaquin winced, then dove back under his covers when Taako pulled apart the curtains so he could finally get a good look at the room. It was cramped and only had Joaquin’s bed, a desk, and a wardrobe in it, all made of the same light wood. It looked a lot like Angus’s old room on the moon base, where he had a single room in the dormitory.
“You’re in college?” Taako asked, turning back to the mound on the bed.
Joaquin slowly uncovered just his eyes, then the rest of his face. He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I know I was just some kid the last time we saw each other, but that was a couple years ago. I graduated from high school and now, well, here I am.” He gestured to something under his desk. “Can you grab me a Gatorade?”
“A what now?” Taako didn’t think alligators were a delicacy in this world, or any, but maybe was wrong. He turned to where Joaquin was pointing, to a small black box with a door under the bed. He opened it, resulting in a pathetic puff of slightly cool air and a few shelves with brightly colored bottles turned on their sides. He pulled one out. “This?”
Joaquin almost gagged. “No! That’s a Mike’s! I definitely don’t need more of those. The blue one, please.”
Taako tossed him the fat blue bottle, then examined the label on the Mike’s. Oh. Oh.
“You’re hungover.”
“No shit, dude,” Joaquin snapped in between sips of Gatorade. “I’m a college student and it’s the weekend. Connect the dots.”
“Well, then, you need to eat,” Taako said decidedly. “What do you got?”
Joaquin pointed on top of the wardrobe, where there were a few small blue and yellow cups, and a black box with numbers on it. Taako grabbed one of the cups and glanced over it disdainfully. “Microwaveable macaroni and cheese? First of all, what the fuh-huck is a microwave? Secondly, who eats pasta with just cheese? Also, is this yellow on the container the same color as the cheese? Because that is not cheese, my man, that is toxic sludge.”
Joaquin finally sat up and glared at Taako. “Alright, Fantasy Gordon Ramsay. Sorry I’m a broke college kid who hasn’t eaten anything other than that mac and cheese and ramen in weeks.”
Taako recoiled. He remembered what it was like to survive on whatever he and Lup had for months at a time. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Okay. Let’s go get you some real food, huh?”
Taako and Joaquin, Gatorade still in hand, made the trek to the grocery store a few blocks away from the dorm. Joaquin complained that 11 a.m. was too early to go do anything, but Taako shushed him. They slunk through the aisles of the store, Taako popping items in his pocket spa when no one was watching. Joaquin was too tired, too broke, and too hungover to care. They returned to Joaquin’s dorm and he showed Taako the community kitchen on his floor, and Taako got to work, pulling out ingredients and mixing things together.
Joaquin looked over his shoulder nervously. Despite how Taako had pooh-poohed him, it was still pretty early for a college student, but Taako wasn’t exactly quiet. Or discreet. Or human.
“Hey, Taako?” he said, trying to sound casual.
“Mm-hmm?” Taako responded. Then he went back to singing whatever song he had been before. Something about seven dragons? And a baby? And waffles?
Joaquin shook his head, trying to clear it. “Do you mind keeping it down a little? A lot of my floormates will be getting up and around soon. And also maybe…wear your hat? To cover your ears? We only have humans here, remember? If someone found any elf, let alone one who fought in the Day of Story and Song, they would call the cops, and then the feds, and then they would try to take you away and do experiments on you and I just really don’t want that to happen.”
Taako was staring at him. Then he grabbed his hat, which had been sitting on the counter away from all the food, and continued staring at Joaquin. Finally, he went back to work, but asked, with a rough edge in his voice, “They do that here? Did they do it to you?’
“What? No, that’s kind of just a joke. Except maybe not really? There have always been rumors and conspiracy theories that government agencies lock up aliens and do scientific testing on them, and you are technically an alien, but that kind of stuff has never been confirmed.”
Taako stopped preparing the food and stared at Joaquin again. “But did anyone hurt you? Because you were involved?” His voice wavered. “Because I gave you magic?”
Joaquin took a step forward, putting a hand on Taako’s shoulder. “No. The powers went away as soon as the Hunger did. Everyone’s phones were on the fritz during the siege so no one got any footage of me Human Torching it up. Because there was never any proof, and I couldn’t do it again, the investigation just stopped. Especially since my existence isn’t the one that was broadcast to literally every person.” He squeezed Taako’s shoulder. “I’m fine. I am worried that if people recognize you, folks we don’t really want sniffing around will come looking. We gotta get you home.”
After Taako made Joaquin enough food the rest of the semester (and enchanted it so it wouldn’t go bad), the two started making their way downtown, to the taco truck where it all started. “I don’t know how I got you here,” Joaquin explained, “but I do know that if there’s any way to get you back, it’ll be there. My shithead brother’s working today, but I think I’ll be able to get him away from the truck for a few minutes.”
When they found the truck, Joaquin’s shithead brother, Thomas, was indeed there, but Joaquin enticed him away by offering to watch the truck for a few minutes so Thomas could go on a smoke break and call his girlfriend. Taako slunk in behind Thomas’s back and the two of them immediately shuttered the windows and doors.
“This,” Joaquin said, hefting up a big, shiny saucepan, “is the exact pan you spoke to me from two years ago. Let’s see if there’s anything we can do.”
Taako used every bit of magic he could think of trying to create another portal. Nothing worked. He slumped against the counter, feeling defeated. He’d traveled to a hundred different planes, but never alone. He didn’t want to be away from his friends, his sister, Kravitz, Angus…
Inspiration struck.
“Joaquin!” Taako shouted, jumping up. Joaquin clapped his hands over his ears, still recovering from his wild night. “Oh, sorry. Anyway, I have an idea. Let’s make a taco!”
“We literally just ate but okay.”
Taako and Joaquin started assembling ingredients in the very saucepan Taako had been trying to spell earlier. Meat, sauce, cheese, the whole nine yards. As the ingredients started sizzling and bubbling, the two felt their truck rocking.
“Joaquin! What the fuck, man?” Thomas had returned. He was banging on the back door the truck, then he suddenly stopped.
Taako heard the jangle of keys at the same time a beam of light started shimmering through the bottom of the pan. He started scraping taco filling into shells, creating more and more light. Once the pan was empty, Taako placed it on the floor. He could hear Lup, Kravitz, and Angus shouting up at him through it. He straightened his hat, winked at Joaquin, and stepped through the portal.
It shrank shut behind him just as Thomas burst into the taco truck. “Seriously,” he huffed at Joaquin, “what the fuck? You’re lucky a line didn’t form. Dad would have your ass.”
Joaquin smiled, feeling a familiar spark shoot through the end of his fingers. It looked like Taako had left him more than food.