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It starts, as he might have expected, with a spell.
Specifically, a bolt of crackling black energy slamming into his collarbone, shattering it and sending waves of painful burning electricity through his body. He collapses, convulsing, slamming his head against the rocks jutting out around this cliché wasteland. Really, you’d think bad guys would start having a better sense of style.
Before he blacks out entirely, Taako hears three things:
The wet thunk of Magnus swinging his axe through the wizard’s neck.
The warming hum of Merle’s magic as he frantically flips through the Extreme Teen Bible.
And Kravitz. Screaming.
*
He’s a little surprised to wake up, to be honest, in a distant sort of way. He’s lying in a bed, he assumes, or something soft and warm. He blinks a few times, staring up at the familiar ceiling of the Bureau of Balance Benevolence infirmary. The familiarity is soothing, and for an instant he expects the handle of the Umbra Staff to be hooked around his arm. He glances down at the weight currently there.
It’s not a handle, but the hand of his sister. Lup is half in a chair, her head pillowed on her arms, left hand clutched tight around his forearm, dark hair spilling everywhere. She’s asleep, ears flicking occasionally. He feels tension lift from his shoulders that he didn’t know was there, and summons the energy to look around the room.
It’s crowded as fuck.
Barry is tucked into the same chair Lup is in, also sleeping, glasses pushed up on his forehead as his face smushes against his wife’s back. They’re both still in their reaper gear for some reason.
Behind them on one of the other beds are Magnus, Merle, and Davenport, Magnus serving as a giant pillow, as usual. They’re all in regular clothes too, and sleeping. Merle and Davenport are holding hands, gross, and Magnus is snoring loud enough to wake the dead.
That thought in mind, Taako glances around for Kravitz, passing over Avi, Carey and Killian, and Ren, who is sleeping in a chair next to Lucretia, who is awake and watching him.
Lucretia is awake and watching him.
He sits up at that, or tries to. Really, he only has the energy to tilt his head up slightly, staring at her. She stands silently, eyes darting around the room at their entire family and then some, and then Taako does see Kravitz, asleep at his other side, newly warm hand entangled with his. Angus is asleep on his lap.
He tries to speak, although nothing really comes out, and at that Lucretia is at his bedside, carefully holding a glass of water to him.
“Don’t try to speak or move just yet, Taako,” she whispers. “We’re still not quite sure what he hit you with.”
He does, in fact, have enough energy to glare.
Lucretia has the nerve to roll her eyes, although she does somehow maneuver some water past his lips without spilling it on the rest of him. It slides down his parched throat soothingly, and he feels a little more like Taako, y’know, from TV? And less like a small, scared elf with pain still rumbling through his body with every breath. His collarbone aches, and so does the rest of him, each heartbeat sending pulses of red pain through his temples. He rests his head back on the pillow, eyes still narrowed at Lucretia, and something in her expression eases.
“This was the closest to your location when you got hit,” she explains, still slightly curling in on herself with the guilt that Taako used to be feel spitefully triumphant about and now is starting to get a little old, honestly.
He doesn’t say anything, but she nods as if he did. “I’ll go,” she says softly. She nudges Kravitz gently as she turns away, a quick Mage Hand reaching across and poking Lup. They wake up almost the same way, his sister and his husband, blinking and confused, and Taako takes a second to be thankful for this life they have now, where Lup isn’t jolting awake from half a meditation, hand curled around her dagger, ready for danger.
(These offhand thoughts distract from the pain, you see.)
“Taako?” Kravitz’s voice filters through this internal monologue. He glances over, tired brown eyes meeting worried red ones. Angus isn’t quite awake yet, although he’s stirring, but Kravitz balances him expertly while gripping Taako’s hand tighter. “Are you… are you alright?”
“Oh thank the Queen, you’re awake,” Lup says from his other side. Without an Ango in her lap, she moves easier, half standing from her chair and leaning over him, gentle hands on his face turning his head this way and that. Over her shoulder, Taako sees Lucretia slip out the door, golden eyes relieved? Regretful? And then she’s gone.
“Taako, I’m so sorry,” Kravitz says, drawing Taako’s attention away from the closed door. “I was too far away, I couldn’t block it—”
“Alright chill out, Ghost Rider,” Lup says, barely batting an eye when Barry tumbles forward against her back with a start. “Wasn’t your fault.”
“Sir?” and now Angus is awake too, rubbing at his eyes, and Taako wants to scold them for not putting him to bed. “Are you okay?”
Taako tries a smile, and judging from the relieved expressions, it seems to have comes across how he wanted. He tries sitting up next, Lup instantly helping him.
This is a mistake.
His collarbone roars in response, sending pounding red-tinged pain in waves through his entire body, and he falls limp against Lup’s hands with a gasp, eyes sliding shut.
Kravitz and Angus lurch forward as Lup catches him, her hands cool through his thin shirt, and that’s not right either. Lulu’s hot, she’s always run hot, even before she took up evocation and became a lich and all, something’s wrong.
“Just hold on, Koko,” Lup whispers.
“It’s okay, sir,” Taako hears Angus say distantly, and then Kravitz is climbing into bed with him, holding him close, and Kravitz is always cooler but he hasn’t been ice cold in a while, not like this. He’s familiar, though, almost as much as Lup is. He slips underneath Taako easily, sitting up against the bedframe, and wraps gentle arms around his stomach, holding him in his lap much as he was holding Angus. He presses a kiss to Taako’s hair as Lup’s hand slips out of his.
“Lulu?” he manages faintly, and he feels Kravitz smile faintly against his scalp.
“She’s just getting Merle, dove,” he whispers. “She’ll be right back.”
His husband doesn’t lie, not like Taako does. Kravitz is always honest, and a few moments later Taako feels his sister’s hands on his face again. She holds his face, gentle again, and carefully pulls his eyelids open.
“Taako?” she says, and Lulu sounds scared, and that’s not right either. “Can you see me?”
He focuses as much as he can, and her face comes into view. She looks scared too.
“Alright,” a gruff voice says, and then a much less pretty face joins her. Merle tugs at his beard, thinking, and Taako thinks to himself that Merle really could have chosen a much cooler animal for his eyepatch than an owl.
A mongoose, perhaps, or Dupree.
“Hey, kid,” Merle says quietly, and now the black is receding from the edges of Taako’s vision with the warm glow emanating from the dwarf’s, revealing the rest of the room. Everyone’s awake, now, and watching him nervously. Magnus is fiddling with his carving knife, looking guilty, while Davenport sees him watching and conjures a grapefruit, winking.
(His captain shouldn’t look that scared either.)
“Still the collarbone,” Merle grunts. “Hell of a spell.”
“Thanks, old man,” Taako manages, and feels Kravitz smile again, a more genuine smile this time. Lup squeezes his hand quickly, three times, their old reassurance that they’re not going anywhere. “What the hell happened?”
“We think he was a warlock, not a wizard,” Kravitz says. “But he must have modified this spell, because we can’t find a match for it anywhere.”
“You’ll be alright,” Merle says, waving his still glowing hand. As he does, the pain eases, fading to merely a whisper of what it was.
“Sorry, Taako,” Magnus calls hoarsely, and now of course he’s crying, the big softie. Davenport pats him consolingly. “I wasn’t quick enough to get him.”
“S’fine, my dude,” Taako says, still boneless against Kravitz.
“Talking’s going to be all you can do for a while,” Merle says. “A few days, at least.”
“I’ll block him from the office,” Ren calls wryly.
“Wouldn’t dare cross you, Ren.”
“Damn straight.”
“How dare you accuse me of being straight.”
“Is it safe to move him?” Kravitz asks. “We can take him home.”
“Should be,” Merle says. “Watch that collarbone specific.”
Kravitz and Lup both nod, and Kravitz hands his scythe to Angus.
“Is this okay, sir?” Angus says, staring down at the instrument of divine justice in his hands. “Are you sure—”
“It’s fine, Angus,” Barry says, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “How ya doin’, bud?”
Taako waves a hand, without pain after the latest round of Merle’s spellwork. “Been better, my dude. Just wanna go home and sleep for a million cycles.”
Lup’s hand tightens on his, but her voice is careful. “Cycles, babe?”
“What?”
“You’ve been on Faerun for years now, sir,” Angus says, carefully swiping the scythe in front of him. With a doubtful, stuttering ripping noise, a rift opens up. “You’re not going through that hell century anymore.”
“Oh, right.” Taako laughs, or tries to, trying to brush it off. “For sure, my man.”
“Hell century?” Davenport asks.
“That’s what Taako calls it, sir.”
“I mean, mood,” Lup murmurs, quietly enough that only Taako and Kravitz hear it. Taako grins weakly as Kravitz lifts him, carry him gently through Angus’s portal. The kid calculated perfectly, looks like, placing them right into Taako and Kravitz’s kitchen. Kravitz doesn’t stop, bearing him up to their bed and settling him gently on his side, surrounding him with all the usual pillows.
“Sleep well, love,” Kravitz whispers.
“Don’t leave,” Taako says, eyes drifting shut again.
Even halfway asleep, Taako feels Kravitz get into bed with him again. “I’m not going anywhere.”
*
Kravitz is the first one to notice.
Taako recovers quickly, as far as anyone can tell, but Kravitz keeps coming into the kitchen to find everything tied down and arranged for seven, whole sections of the kitchen disregarded and unused. He asks Taako, once.
“Love, why did you tie down the sugar?” he asks carefully.
Taako snorts. “Cause it’ll fly all over the place if I don’t when Cap’nport does another barrel roll, duh.”
“Taako, we live in a house? You’re not on the Starblaster anymore.”
His husband freezes at that, a hundred thoughts flashing through his eyes as Kravitz watches, but then he laughs and shrugs, covering himself smoothly with a smile and a glamour. “Of course, my man,” he says. “I know! Just habit, that’s all.”
Everything is untied by the next morning, without another word.
(And retied, the morning after that.)
There are other things too, smaller things, harder to quantify. Taako’s jokes are a little colder, a little nastier. He doesn’t talk to Ren as much anymore, and always seems surprised for a beat when Angus arrives for magic lessons. He stays closer to Lup than he has since she first got her body back.
Kravitz knows he has to say something when Taako makes an offhand comment about “going to hang out with Lucy to get away from all you clowns”.
“Taako,” Kravitz says, standing up from the table. His husband has his back to him, busily cooking away, pancakes, it looks like. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t know what you mean, babe.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Kravitz says, as patiently as he can. “I know when something’s wrong.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Taako’s ears are down around his shoulders, his back stiff, and he won’t turn to look at Kravitz, even when Kravitz puts a hand on his arm. He shakes it off and picks up the skillet, flipping the pancake perfectly.
“Dove,” he says, gentle. “Please.”
Taako slams the skillet down suddenly, the stove bursting into flames. Kravitz leaps back, pulling Taako with him, only to have his husband rip away from him sharply, twisting away to stand by the fridge, panting. The elf is half crouched, wide eyed, and has his wand in his hand.
It’s pointed at Kravitz.
“Taako?” Kravitz says, hands up, confused, hurt.
They face down in silence, save for the crackling of the stove, until Taako’s ears twitch and his wand falls from nerveless fingers. The flames vanish as abruptly as they appeared as Taako drops to his knees, burying his face in his hands.
Cautiously, Kravitz approaches, going to his knees to meet his husband. “Taako? Can I… is it okay if I touch your shoulders?”
Taako sniffles, dragging his hands away from his face. His face is streaked with horrified tears, but he pulls his shoulders back and holds up a hand. “Kravitz, I…” he stops, grinding the heel of his palm against his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Just talk to me,” Kravitz says. “We can work out whatever’s happening, together. It’ll be okay.”
“No. I, I mean,” Taako heaves a breath. “I just… I’m sorry.”
He lurches to his feet and darts out of the kitchen, leaving Kravitz alone on the kitchen floor, with a burnt stove, an abandoned wand, half cooked pancakes, and without his husband. Distantly, he hears the door slam.
Outside, Taako scrubs at his eyes again, digging in his pocket for the bracer he enchanted off of his arm the day after Story and Song. He tossed it contemptuously in the dirt next to a sleeping Lucretia, but it had still shown up in his living room. He hadn’t been able to get rid of it since. He jabs at the Bureau symbol now, frantically, again and again even after the symbol glows.
The moon base must have been close, because it only takes a few minutes for a cannonball to land in his – no, their, his and Kravitz’s – front yard. He scrambles inside it as quickly as he can, and fortunately the cannonball takes off before Kravitz can make it outside, assuming he would have followed Taako.
The ride to the moon base is silent, broken only by Taako’s harsh breathing and the sound of his stone, ringing with a half a dozen different frequencies. He doesn’t answer any of them, bounding out of the sphere as soon as Avi hooks it into place.
“Oh, hey, Taako! Wasn’t expecting to—”
“Where is she?” Taako demands, cutting him off.
“Oh, uh, do you mean Madam Dire— Lucretia?” Avi asks, leaning back from Taako’s pointing finger. “In her office, I guess? You kinda look like shit, Taako, what’s—”
Taako’s already gone, stalking through the too-familiar halls of the moon base, across the quad, and into the dome housing Lucretia’s office. He bursts through the door into her office, the door hitting the wall with a vicious BANG.
Lucretia, half asleep at her desk, jolts upward, blinking at Taako storming towards her.
“Taako, what—”
“Fix this,” he snarls, slamming his hands on her desk.
“What?”
“You heard me,” Taako snaps, almost nose to nose with the woman who was once his sister. “Fix this.”
“Fix what?” Lucretia says, regaining a small amount of calm, although the worried crease between her eyebrows doesn’t go away.
“Whatever the fuck that dude did to me!” Taako exclaims, thrusting himself up and throwing his hands in the air. “I don’t know why but I’m forgetting, Lucretia, I’m starting to forget everything! I keep thinking we’re back on the Starblaster! I’m snapping at Ren, because she’s dust, until I remember she’s not, I almost forget who Angus is when he pops up at the house I don’t remember owning, I—” he stops for a moment, hand pressed tight to his mouth, before turning burning eyes back on her. “I’m forgetting Kravitz.”
“Taako, I don’t know what you expect me to do—” Lucretia starts, rising from her chair.
“No,” Taako hisses, covering the distance between them in two long strides and leaning in, inches from her face. “You owe me, Lucretia, and you know all about making me forget.”
Her face crumples at that, as he knew it would, before she too draws on that particular sort of stubbornness they all developed, during the century, the sheer hardheadedness needed to keep going, cycle after hopeless cycle. She has more of it than any of them, Taako thinks darkly, after that year alone and then that bullshit she pulled with Fisher.
She sighs once, deeply, but it’s more of a gathering herself sigh, and then she meets his eyes with that customary Creesh sharpness. “You’re right,” she says. “How can I help?”
Taako shrugs, still shaking with anger and fear and confusion, but Lucretia sets her shoulders and gets to work.
She pulls out her journals, the ones from the more magic-heavy cycles. She consults ancient tomes pulled from the depths of the library the Bureau of Benevolence rebuilt, emerging from another fight with the Restricted Section’s monster with barely a scratch this time. She plunges alone into a haunted underwater dungeon, wand out, and comes back four hours later with a dripping, salt-encrusted pearl the size of her head and a broken arm.
(She goes to Merle to get that taken care of, at Taako’s insistence, but they don’t involve anyone else. She mutters that they’re lucky, in a way, that Merle doesn’t ask many questions.
Taako, busy with blocking his soul signature from his extremely worried husband and sister by weaving a spell into his scarf, doesn’t answer.)
Taako grows worse. He’s forgetting Faerun more quickly now, each day taking longer and longer to remember Kravitz, to remember Angus, to remember Ren and his school and the Day of Story and Song, even. Lucretia takes precious time out of her preparations, refusing to hear a word about it from him, to coach him through remembering. She writes up a summary, efficient and desperate, of everything he cares about on this final plane.
It gets worse still.
Taako awakens every morning convinced they’re earlier in the century. He makes an offhand comment, four days in, wondering if his sister is ever going to make a move on that denim-clad nerd, and Lucretia shatters her coffee mug in her hand.
Taako, shocked, calls around for Merle before wrapping her wound himself, giving her just enough time to compose herself and stop the tears. She snatches her journals and forces him through an abridged version of the latter half of the century and all their time on Faerun, and his memories return to him, leaving him shaking and clutching at Lucretia in fear, for all her past sins against him.
Sunset eight days later finds them at the top of an active volcano, Lucretia with half a dozen spell ingredients, rare and common, Taako shivering and shaky and desperate. He’s barely slept, or even meditated, and she’s not much better. She conjures a blanket for him, whisking it around his shoulders as she sets up the spell. He nods, watching her with that same wariness the twins always had before they launched. He clears his throat when she’s about to begin.
“Uh, ‘scuse me, human lady?”
“Yes?” Lucretia asks, faltering slightly, still turned away from him.
“Why’s the sky fucked up? S’posed to be purple, purple skies don’t get this color at sunset.”
“It’s… a long story.” Lucretia smiles faintly, bitterly. “Very long.”
“Uh-huh,” Taako says, waving a dismissive hand. “Hey, you, uhhh, you seen my sister anywhere around?”
“Oh. Yes, she’s waiting for us, once we’re done with this.”
“What exactly are you doing?” he asks, suspicious now, clutching the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “Why does my chest hurt so bad?”
“You were hit by a pretty bad spell and I’m trying to help,” Lucretia says, dryly grateful that her human ears don’t betray her feelings like elf ears would. “Just…” she stops for a moment, fully aware of the irony of what she’s about to say. “Just trust me, Taako.”
The elf is silent for a moment, although she can feel his eyes boring into her back. “You know,” he says. “I don’t know if I do.”
“That’s fine,” Lucretia says, hoping she succeeds in keeping the unfair hurt out of her voice. Nothing more than what she deserves, after all.
“But I’ll let you do, uhhh, whatever all this junk is,” Taako adds. She swipes at her watering eyes and glances at him. He looks more thoughtful than usual. “My sister would like you, I think.” He grins. “She always did go for the nerds.”
“Yeah,” Lucretia manages, attempting to focus back on the spell. “Yeah, she does.”
Taako is quiet, watching her intently, as Lucretia begins her chanting. It’s a complicated spell, stitched together with magical principles from half a different worlds and a dozen different schools, using components and deity-specific chants and willpower, always willpower. She smiles grimly as she channels the power through her more ordinary staff, the one Magnus carved from red maple just for her.
Lucretia has never lacked for willpower.
She groans as the volcano spouts beneath them, rooted in place by the power of the spell. Taako’s hands are suddenly on her shoulders, supporting her, his confused voice in her ear. She’s skilled, of course, and powerful, and she loves him, but their relationship is too complicated for what this spell needs. “Taako.”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Drop the soul spell.”
“The what?”
“Your scarf,” she grits out.
“But it’s my statement piece.”
“Taako!”
“Alright, alright,” he grumbles, and unknots the scarf from his neck.
A rift tears open an instant later, Kravitz, Lup, and Barry spilling out. Kravitz lurches for Taako, although Taako dodges and goes for Lup instead. “Lup!”
“Thank the Queen,” Lup says, grabbing onto him tightly. “Taako, what the fuck?”
“Lulu, what’s going on?” Taako asks, staring at Barry and Kravitz. “Hachi machi, who’s this hunk? And the nerd in the blue jeans?”
Lup bites her lip before glaring at Lucretia. “Lucretia what the fuck is going on?”
“Complicated,” Lucretia grunts, holding the entire force of an active volcano in her control through sheer will. “Make them… hold hands.”
“Who?” Taako and Lup ask at the same time.
“Husbands,” Lucretia manages, veins popping out on her forehead. Her hands shake as they clutch her staff with a white-knuckled grip.
“What?” Lup demands, but Barry places a hand on her shoulder. He’s been taking in Taako’s state, Lucretia’s trembling figure, and the spell components scattered all over the ground. He looks at Taako and then at Kravitz, and snaps his fingers.
“Memory shit,” he says hastily. “Taako needs someone to ground him to his present. Kravitz is the best for it.”
“Look, he’s hot, but I’m not doing that hand holding shit,” Taako declares, watching uncaring as Kravitz’s face crumples.
“Taako, babe,” Lup says hurriedly as she pulls his left hand up. “Look at this.”
“Hurry,” Lucretia groans. She’s steaming now, light pulsing from within.
“Look,” Lup urges.
“Why am I wearing a wedding ring?”
“Because we’re married,” Kravitz says, holding up his own hand, with its matching ring. “We have been for a few years now, love. I know you don’t remember, but…” He summons a smile, despite the tears in his eyes, holding his hands out to Taako. “I love you. And you love me. We’re trying to set it right.”
Taako looks around, at the shaking human woman at the lip of the volcano, at the hot dude stretching out his hands, at the nerd with the blue jeans and a scythe, at his sister, desperate and watching his back as always. He meets Lup’s eyes.
And Taako chooses trust.
He takes Kravitz’s hands, dark cool skin against warmer brown, matching rings brushing together. Kravitz grips tight, and Taako does too, without knowing why. He offers this man his customary smirk, more than a hint of uncertainty in his eyes, and Kravitz smiles right back. They turn as one to Lucretia, who gasps and flings her hands up, lightning crackling from her staff as a spout of lava erupts.
The lightning and the lava hit the staff at the same time, and she slams the butt of the staff on the ground with a hoarse yell. Lup and Barry are blown backwards by the force as the spell components turn to ash, but Taako and Kravitz are untouched.
Instead, a bright, bright light blooms from Lucretia and her staff, enveloping her before expanding outward. When it reaches the two men, it loops around them, sinking into their entwined hands.
Their rings begin to glow.
The moment thrums with tension. Taako and Kravitz stand silhouetted against the sparking sky, lightning flashing a few times a second. The volcano below seethes and bubbles, sending up spouts of flame and lava nearly in time with the lightning.
The rings glow, brighter and brighter, until everything whites out.
And then.
Everything falls silent.
Everything is still.
The sky clears.
The volcano quiets.
Lucretia lies on the ground, passed out cold.
Lup and Barry rise cautiously from behind the nearby boulders, eyes intent on the two figures still standing, hands clasped together.
And then the shorter figure flings his arms around the other, breaking the silence with litany of “Kravitz, you’re here, I’m here, I’m okay, I remember, I remember, I remember!”
“Well done, Creesh,” Lup says quietly, glancing at Barry, as Kravitz picks Taako up and spins him around.
Both of them are laughing.
“Thank the Queen,” Kravitz says as they sink to the ground, pressing their foreheads together. “You’re okay.” He laughs again, a little wetly, as Taako wipes at his tears.
“I’m here, bones,” Taako whispers. “I’m not going anywhere, not again.”
Lup carefully skirts the reunion and goes to Lucretia, still on the ground.
“Is she okay?” Taako asks, still holding tight to Kravitz, but with his full memories restored.
“I think so,” Lup says, picking her up carefully. She waves Barry back. “She’s still hot, babe. I mean, Creesh is always hot, but—” she laughs. “She’s literally hot. I think I’m the only one who can hold her without being burned.”
“She did channel the entire force of a volcano,” Barry points out.
“Yeah,” Taako murmurs, looking down at an unconscious Lucretia in Lup’s arms. Out cold, exhausted, some of those artificial years have slid away, leaving a face that’s closer to the younger sister Taako remembers than the distant Madam Director he can’t help but think of every time he looks at her.
With Lucretia like this, having just done what she did, Taako can almost remember the way they used to be.
“Love,” Kravitz says, hugging him more tightly. “She’ll be alright. Let’s go home.”
“Yeah,” Taako says quietly. He brushes a limp strand of white hair away from Lucretia’s closed eyes. “Yeah, babe, that sounds real good. Let’s go home.”