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Lights flash around him, multi colored spotlights all focusing down on an already spun wheel. Two arrows, pointing in opposite directions after intertwining, embedded with gold and gems (in another time Taako could appreciate the dedication to the glitzy theme of it all, but not now). In a voice feigning annoyance and pride (he had very little of the latter at this moment), Taako looked up at the glamourous elves (were they twins? Why did he hate thinking about if they were twins). A clear of his throat and he said, “What the fuck does that mean?”
One of the elves (Lydia, she hurts to look at even past the rhinestones that are honestly too gaudy) laughs and snaps her fingers, “Oh! Don’t worry!”
Even as she says that, Taako can’t stop himself from worrying. “I should get to know! I have the option to refuse, don’t I?”
Lydia (the name burns in his mouth and he thinks of static) tilts her head like a confused bird. “Do you want to refuse and roll again?”
Taako frowned, and looked down at the wheel. No good options, all of them potentially almost fatal. A few more moments of deliberation, and he shook his head, “I’ll take it. Just tell me what it was.”
A snap of her fingers and Taako feels cold spread throughout his chest. He grunts and his hand pressed on the skin above his heart as he felt his breath hitch. Lydia laughed (this time Edward echoes her laugh) and shrugs, “Don’t worry, it’s nothing you’ll miss!”
Hours (or was it days? Taako found his heart again and time seemed to have slowed) later, he finds himself kneeling in a circle of black glass. He hurts as he touches it (not physically, but he knows what made this. He knows why Lup went missing now), but he does it anyway. The Grim Reaper is trapped in the Hunger and someone needs to free him so they have another helping hand.
Taako began to chant, words spiraling out of his mouth as if he were writing them on the air. Magic funneled from his fingertips (spread palms down on the glass) into the glass, lighting it up from the inside. Here is where he funnels his emotions, his anger (at Lucretia), his love (for his family), his rage (for the Hunger). Here is where he does everything he can for his family.
A temporary blackout, and Taako found himself getting shaken awake on a perfect meter circle of sapphire. He lurched upwards, almost knocking his head into the man who had woken him up, “Oh. Fuck, how long was I out?”
The man smiled and Taako felt the distinct impression of a heartbeat pounding in his chest, but there was no physical (or emotional) counterpart. A bemused twist entered the smile and he cocked his head (curious birds), “How….how did you do that?”
There’s a beat of time, as if they were both waiting for something to happen. But Taako merely shrugged and began to stand, “Well, obviously I’m just rad like that, natch.”
A laugh that almost warms Taako’s cold chest, and he shakes his head, “I know, Taako, I know.”
Taako frowns, almost confused, before remembering the song, “Oh right, yeah. You heard the song I’m assuming?”
“Do you...Taako, babe-” A laugh that Taako very quickly cut off.
“Hey, whoa kemosabe.” He held his hands up and took a step back, “Just because you know my story, doesn’t mean you know who I am. I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s...Kravitz.” There’s a hitch of breath between the two words, and Kravitz begins to float up. “I...we’re-” Whatever they had to do was not verbalized as an explosion rocked the ground. Kravitz’s human form flickered, and Taako could see the skeleton underneath, “-We have to talk about this later.”
“Yeah Ghost Rider-” Taako makes a point to ignore the fractured laugh coming from the skeleton- “Yeah I think we might have to.” And then he turns, and he runs towards his family (his real family)
Kravitz is left floating, staring at the elf run away from him, before closing the thin eyelids that were half not there and releasing a yell as Legion burst into the Prime Material Plane on his orders.
It’s over, and (almost) everything is at peace. Almost is a funny word here.
Taako is with his family (all of it), and he’s crying. He’s crying in joy and in catharsis and in anger and indignation. But his sister mimes holding him and he feels more complete than he’s felt in the past decade. His brother holds him and he feels the wound of static finally closing up. His family holds each other, and they cry.
There’s an intruder on this scene, on this private heartfelt scene. A tall, dark and… a tall, dark-skinned man standing in a suit at the edge of the reunion. Taako’s ear twitched, and he glanced at the man, “Oh. It’s you. Kravitz, right?”
There’s nothing in his voice.
Kravitz mimes a smile (easier to do when his skin isn’t on), and nodded his head, “Yes, that’s my name. I think we should talk about-”
Taako interrupted him, still leaning back on his family as a unit, letting them hold him once more, “-yeah, yeah, whatever. Look, I did my Istus-sent duty to get you out of the Hunger. We needed all the hands we could get.” A shrug of his shoulders.
Kravitz looked around, glancing from Lup (a lich, he should be arresting her but she is a being of fire and flame and he dare not intrude), to Barry (a lich, but more put together), to Merle and Magnus. The last two put at ease the hollowness spreading through his empty chest with their confusion.
But they don’t speak, and Taako does.
“So thanks for your help but-” Here he laughs, but it’s in preparation to make his family laugh, “-but Taako ain’t doing signatures today.”
Kravitz is thankful for his spectral form, for the fact he doesn’t have to fake a smile, and for the fact that all of his laughs sound hollow. “Right...right. Well.” And he looks from Taako to Barry and Lup and before he can even speak Taako interrupts his breath,
“No. No no no. I don’t care what fucking death crimes they did on a planet like...three decades ago. You are not going to take my family from me.” His wand is out and pointed at Kravitz and there is nothing but anger in his eyes.
Kravitz takes a step back out of pure instinct, but sighs, “My Lady wants...to speak with them. I promise...I promise that nothing will harm or injure them, but if they avoid capture. Then My Lady will have reason to send more bounty hunters for them.”
Taako’s eyes narrow, and his ears are stretched up. He looks Kravitz up and down, before putting his wand back down and retreating to the comfort of his family’s collective warmth, “Fine. But don’t think I won’t do everything to get them back.”
Kravitz would gulp if it would help, but he just nodded, “Alright.”
And with that, the liches and the Grim Reaper are gone.
And with that, Taako turns and holds his family like if he doesn’t they will shatter.
Soon enough, something else shatters.
But it doesn’t shatter like a window shatters when a baseball bat hits it. It doesn’t shatter like a dropped ornament. It shatters like ice slowly shatters underneath feet.
It shatters as Kravitz learns to live near Taako, but not with (never with) him.
It shatters as Kravitz becomes Angus’s mentor as he studies to become a paladin of The Raven Queen. As Taako makes him some random dish instead of a personalized one like he makes everyone else around him. It’s never the same, never some routine to get used to. Jokes are made, about how he’s replacing Taako as Angus’s mentor, but they aren’t for him to laugh at.
Something else shatters as Barry and Lup become Reapers with him, as Taako looks at them when talking about death crimes. Shatters as Kravitz stays over to talk with Lup and Barry and Taako goes off on a trip.
Something shatters as Taako keeps him at arms length, and that something is Kravitz’s heart.
But don’t you know? It's better to feel pain, than nothing at all. And the opposite of love's indifference