Chapter Text
I.i
Lucretia flops down on the bed, wrinkling her nose at the puff of magical sparks that she sends a few inches up into the air. “Taako,” she says, bringing her hands up to rub at her temples, “I’m so gay.”
“Oh, mood,” he replies, not bothering to look up from the book he’s reading.
“I mean for your sister.”
Taako snorts. “I figured.” He begins the long, drawn out process of putting his book away that Lucretia has grown accustomed to: running his finger up and down the page a few times, conjuring a bookmark, deciding it isn’t up to snuff, and so on and on. “Your options in the being gay department are kind of limited here on StarBlaster Central, Lucy.”
She moves from her temples to her entire face. “I mean, yes, I suppose, but, I mean-”
He finally settles on a bookmark, unceremoniously shoving it in the book and using Mage Hand to set it somewhere on his dresser. “I approve ,” and he sneers as he says it, “if that’s what you’re asking. I know no one back at the Institute could tell before we left, but me and Lup are our own people. She can handle herself if you hurt her, or whatever. Not that you,” and he almost can’t keep going, voice choked out by his bubbly, high pitched laugh, “No offense, Lucy Goosey, but you ain’t the most threatening silhouette.”
She smiles, can’t help it when she talks to him most of the time. “Wow, Taako, thanks for the confidence, dearest friend of mine.”
He starts laughing harder at that. “Okay, okay, I’ll make it up. I’ll help set you two up-”
“-Really? Because, hmm-”
“And by set you two up, I mean literally put the two of you in the same fucking room because Lup and I have already - what?”
She blinks, portraying an ignorance they both know is fake. “What?”
“What were you gonna say?”
“Oh! You mean - I get it!” She grins. “I was going to say that I don’t know how useful romantic advice would be from you because I didn’t think you’d ever been around that block, but then I remembered that that wasn’t the case.”
“Well, it's been a while, no one here on this metal husk can handle the sheer Power of Taako, but-”
Her grin grows wider, and it’s something like checkmate when she says, “So Magnus was lying to me?”
And then they both start laughing, and Taako shrieks out “I take it back! I’m not helping you for shit!” between short, giggly breaths.
I. ii.
“This feels like the kind of thing you could just do with magic.”
Lucretia is sitting on a stool - half conjured, half transmuted from Barry’s chair at the dinner table - in front of Taako’s vanity. The table in front of her covered in little glass pots and bottles of powders and creams and liquids, all products of the “patented makeover schooling” Taako had promised her.
He’s over in the corner of his room right now, shoulder-deep in a Bag of Holding he pulled from a pile of six just like it. “Of course you could do it that way! Lucy, you’re telling the best transmutation wizard to ever live anywhere about Disguise Self. I get it, you’re just as smart as you always are, but, you see,” and he bites his lip for a moment, leans into the bag and gives a little aha! as he finds what he’s looking for - a long, thing applicator brush, “I find this way to be more precise, and I use it to waste time to get out of chores. Not all of us have constant, chronicler-ey obligations to use as excuses, Lue-cre-sha!”
As he walks over to her, she fidgets a bit with the hem of her shirt, feels distinctly the minimal magic precariously keeping her chair together. “Okay, you do have me there, but how is this-”
He presses the brush to her lips, and she laughs a bit at the way it tickles. “Shush. It’s fun to try out new shit with your face. Besides, you gotta make Lup really flustered for this little date of yours or else I can’t support it.”
She laughs, and he starts looking through the pots, biting his lip as he searches for a particular one. “So you can’t just be happy for your sister? You have to embarrass her?”
He laughs in turn, plucking up a small container from the vanity between his thumb and forefinger. “I have to embarrass both of you. Else it's not funny.” The pot he’s holding is full of golden glitter, and with a muttered word under his breath it turns a gentle lavender.
“Hold still, now. You don’t seem like a full face kind of girl, so we’re gonna be simple about it. I want to start with your cheekbones because-”
I. iii.
She’s contemplative, a few weeks later, when she finds herself sitting on another magically amalgamated stool and under Taako’s scrutinous gaze.
“I feel like this happens too often, Taako.”
He doesn’t answer, quickly looking between her and the canvas in front of him. He moves his whole head as he does, and each time his gaze settles somewhere his grimace deepens.
She snorts and brings a hand up from her lap to her mouth to hide it. “You look kinda constipated.”
“Fuck, Lucy! I just had it!” He huffs, and the paintbrush in his hand reverts into a bobby pin with a puff of smoke. “I don’t think I’m gonna get any farther with this today.”
She slides down from the stool, careful despite how short it is compared to her height. “Let’s see it then.” By the time she walks around the canvas, the bobby pin is already a pencil, and Taako has the eraser end of it shoved into his mouth.
The portrait of her looks alright, she thinks, especially considering that this is the first thing he’s ever painted. Only her head and arms are complete, all connected by vague shapes that are probably supposed to be her torso. The shapes and anatomy are all off, but he’s put all the colors and shadows in the right places.
She must spend too long looking at it because by the time she turns to jokingly dig at it his posture is completely different. He’s tense, pulled in on himself in a way she hasn’t seen since orientation at the Institute when he wouldn’t let go of Lup’s wrist. Wood splinters between his teeth. She finds herself lost at the sound, unable to form words as she bitterly swallows the realization that she doesn’t know how to deal with honest fear in his eyes.
The pencil cracks and so does the tension as he says, “Don’t think this is how you teach people painting.”
And she can’t help but follow that escape route. “No, I doubt that. But this is good.”
He huffs, and the pencil is once more a bobby pin that he tucks into his hair. His voice is laced with mockery as he says, “This feels like the kind of thing you could just do with magic.”
And he makes it happen. With a flick of his wrist, the painting’s image shifts, contorts until it’s a picture perfect portrait of her.
“Yes, of course, but,” she Dispels the illusion, “I personally find it enjoyable. Plus my writing can only get me out of so many chores.”
They both laugh at that, laugh until Taako gets small again.
“You sure it’s alright?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t lie to you, Taako.”
I. iv.
It’s been a few years since a civilization has welcomed them so warmly and at least a decade since anyone has held a real party in their honor. Lucretia finds she doesn’t particularly like them, as there’s so much she could be doing instead, but she has learned, over time, how to best spend them.
Having a beautiful, amazing, fun, awesome girlfriend helps, she thinks.
“Said that one out loud too, Lucy.”
She and Lup are standing near a bar, each clutching vibrantly-colored drinks. Despite being dubbed guests of honor, they’re being mostly left alone by the inhabitants of this world.
“I think the people out here just like to drink, probably.”
“Mmm,” Lup hums as she pulls Lucretia closer. She goes willingly, burying her face into Lup’s chest. “Look over there.”
Lucretia follows the length of Lup’s arm, past where she’s gesturing with her drink, until her eyes fall on the dancefloor.
Front and center are Taako and Magnus. Despite the thrumming beat encouraging action and the occasional request from someone else to dance with them, they stay close to each other. Magnus’ hands are firm on Taako’s shoulders, which shake so badly that Lucretia can see his laughter from even so far away. She watches as Magnus picks him up, spins the two of them around a bit before leaning into a kiss.
“Never seen him this happy,” Lup says so quietly Lucretia isn’t sure she was meant to hear it.