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He can pretty much tell they're fucked as soon as he regains consciousness. Everything hurts, this is not an exaggeration, everything fucking hurts, his mouth tastes like blood and vomit and everything between his ribs and his hips is a big, ugly swamp of the worst thing he's ever felt.
"Fuck," he grits out, or at least tries; his throat is dry and it comes out as much a groan as an expletive.
"Taako." That's Magnus; he sounds equal parts shaky and relieved. "Hold on, don't try and move."
Taako almost laughs. Like yeah, thanks, obviously. He refrains, because laughing seems like it would hurt. "Th' hell are we?" He mumbles, trying to look around without moving his head. It's . . . wow, it's really dark in here, even to his eyes. Dark and cold and stinking like damp.
"We're in a cave." Magnus must be working completely blind, because his shitty human vision is useless in the dark. There's a little bit of scraping noise, the sound of a flint striking, and a candle flickers to life.
Taako squeezes his eyes shut at the throb of pain the light sends straight to his temples. But not before he catches a glimpse of Magnus, streaked in grime and paler than usual. There's blood in the human's hair and one side of his face looks scraped to shit.
Well, fuck. Taako breathes as deep as he can manage to and tries to piece together exactly what happened last time he was awake. Fighting, he remembers fighting something big and angry and sharp. Remembers a sensation of falling for a lot longer than he had intended to. "Oh, holy shit, you asshole, did you push me off a fucking cliff?"
"What?" Magnus barks out a laugh, albeit a strained one. "No? That was the dire bear, and also, fuck you."
Ah. Dire bear. Yeah, that slots together with big, angry, and sharp and explains why his guts feel like someone hit him with a rake made of razors.
Wow, they're really and definitely fucked.
Magnus shuffles over and slides an arm under his shoulders, lifts a water skin to his lips. "Here. Take it slow, okay?"
"That's what she said." The water is stale and lukewarm and the best godsdamned thing that has ever happened to him. He makes an irritated noise when Magnus pulls it away. "So, important question, where's the bear now?"
Magnus shrugs one shoulder and gestures vaguely upwards. "Last I saw it, up there somewhere."
"Ahuh." Taako cringes a little as his stomach gives a twinge from the water hitting it. That's probably not great. "And a cave is definitely the best place to hide from a bear, good thinking there my dude."
Magnus snorts. Taako realizes that there's blood soaking one shoulder of his IPRE jacket and a bandage stuffed awkwardly over the wound. So that's neat. "This is a small fucking cave and it was a big fucking bear. Relax."
"Please. Taako is always relaxed." He closes his eyes again, because the candle's giving him a headache and also because looking at things is an unusually large amount of work right now.
It's been a shitty cycle from the beginning and the last week of looking for the Light in two-person teams has been even shittier and today -- well, today is definitely the shittiest. He's concussed and freezing and he burned the last of his spell slots on the fucking dire bear, not that he knows any healing spells anyway.
Oh, and there's also the gut wound, which should probably figure higher in the scheme of his concerns. He decides to blame the concussion for that oversight, because he is definitely and absolutely not in denial. Nor is he terrified. Nope. Noooooope.
They're so screwed.
He kind of loses a little time at that point, or possibly a little consciousness. Magnus is talking for a minute or two before the words start being words and not just a rumble in the background. But it's not that which rouses him; it's the sensation of his stomach flipping, his gorge rising, and it makes everything hurt more than it did before.
Magnus moves fast for such a big fella, and by the time Taako loses the battle with his gag reflex Magnus has him propped up against his chest, one arm holding him steady while the other snatches Taako's braid out of the way.
Vomiting is the worst experience of Taako s life. Most of what he brings up is blood, and he'd be a lot more terrified of how much there is if he wasn't busy being in absolute brain erasing agony. By the time he's finished he's shaking violently and making miserable little noises that he is utterly mortified to hear himself making. Magnus just runs a hand down his back, eases him carefully away from the mess he just made.
"I gotcha." Magnus shifts so that Taako can lean back against him without having to be held up.
Taako rallies with an enormous act of will and catches his breath, schooling his expression into something cocky and teasing and not just mindlessly miserable. "If you wanted to spoon, Burnsides, you could've said something sooner."
"It's for warmth." Magnus says, in a way that makes it clear he's half joking. "Cave's too small for a fire."
"Keep telling yourself that." But it actually does help; Magnus is a big warm bear of a man and Taako feels his shakes marginally subsiding. Great, they won't freeze to death, at least.
Not that he's going to have enough time for that to be a concern. Taako cringes.
" . . . Why are you here?"
"Because I figured jumping was better than letting the dire bear do it." The answer comes too quick, which means Magnus expected this conversation, and Taako is honestly kind of mad at him for that. Magnus is putting himself in danger, staying here, and maybe the time he's wasting on keeping Taako fucking company while he dies is time that will mean the difference between Magnus getting back to the ship alive or not.
"Don't be a big dumb martyr." Taako really wishes his voice hadn't caught just then, it ruins the effect.
"Oh my god, look who's talking." Magnus actually shoves Taako's shoulder a little, which hurts but also makes Taako feel a little less pathetic about this conversation. "I'm not leaving, you dumb asshole. Being alone sucks and you hate it."
". . . True." Magnus is scared, too, Taako realizes, hurt and scared and, if not dying, at least not having an especially good day. Taako has a momentary miserable vision of the near future -- Magnus trying to cross the hostile lands between here and the Starblaster on foot, injured and alone, while Taako is . . . Taako is . . .
The word dead makes his stomach flip over again, and this time it's only blood that he brings up. Significantly less blood than last time, which isn't actually comforting. He probably should know how much blood the average Elven body holds. He'll look it up, when he's . . .
Fuck.
"It's okay." Magnus's voice is incredibly gentle. "When it's over you wake up and you're back on the 'Blaster, Day One, new cycle. It's gonna be okay."
Right. Magnus has done this before. Taako tries to take a deep breath, changes his mind when it makes everything flare up in pain again. "Well, I guess I just won't bother worrying about fucking dying, then," he snaps, more acid in it than he meant to. Taako gets mean when he gets scared, this is a known quantity at this point.
"That's the spirit." Magnus doesn't take it personally. He just wraps his arms around Taako's shoulders gingerly, like he's worried about something getting broken. Someone with hands that big and rough shouldn't be capable of that much gentleness, it's just absurd.
Taako doesn't try and shake him off. He tells himself it's because he doesn't have the energy, and not because he's feeling repentant for snapping at Magnus. Definitely not because it feels nice to let someone hold him while he's . . .
Well.
Something in his chest clenches. He wants Lup. He wants his sister. He doesn't want to bail on her this early in a cycle, he doesn't want to think about what her face is gonna look like when Magnus tells her what happened -- or worse, much worse, what it will look like if Magnus never makes it back to the ship and she just has to live with not knowing for the rest of the year . . .
Taako's eyes prickle, and oh hell no, he is not going to die with the sniffles, no way, that is absolutely unacceptable. He swallows hard and shoves his thoughts away from Lup as hard as he possibly can. "Is there any more water?" He knows it's a bad idea, that's the point. Anything's better than lying here and getting maudlin in his last moments.
"Sure." Magnus shifts a little bit, lets go with only one arm and gropes for the water skin. Taako tries not to feel guilty about using part of a supply that Magnus is going to ultimately need a hell of a lot more than he does. Sue him. He died as he lived: a selfish, catty bastard. He only manages a sip before his entire torso spasms and he ends up doubled over, sputtering and choking on blood, in too much pain to think anything more coherent than makeitstopmakeitstopplease. Magnus holds him through it, makes kind little noises that only barely register through the waves of anguish.
By the time Taako's done he's lost a lot more blood, if the spotty black fuzziness around his vision is any indication. His hands are numb and he's freezing again, and this time the warm human bulk at his back doesn't do anything to fend off the shakes. Oh, gods, he's actually and really gonna die here. He wonders if his heart is hammering like this because it's grasping for what's left of his blood or from the sheer animal terror that 's welling up in him. Probably both.
"Shhh." Magnus is rubbing warm circles into Taako's shoulderblades with one of his big rough hands. "I know."
Taako curls up against him as much as his shattered body will permit, fighting another wave of agony to do it. He's so cold and Magnus is so warm. "You didn't have to stay." He slurs, the closest he's gonna get to admitting how glad he is that Magnus did. "Y'know it's not gonna change anything."
Magnus rubs his arm. "Half of what we do doesn't change anything," He rumbles, "But here we are."
"Gods." Taako closes his eyes. His head still hurts, only now it also feels hollowed-out and buzzy on top of the pain. "Do you practice sounding noble in the fucking mirror or something?"
"Yup." Magnus drawls, popping the last consonant, and Taako decides that he will do his friend a favor and not notice that it's a shaky parody of Burnsides' usual cheerful affirmation.
They don't talk much after that. It gets progressively harder for Taako to make words do . . . whatever it is that words do in your brain before you say them. The shivers turn into shudders and then into a kind of long, sustained vibration. He floats away and wanders back, anchored by the anguish in his guts. Magnus becomes a cloud of sensation, warm and solid and, ludicrously, safe.
Taako hopes Magnus makes it back to the ship okay after this.
He hopes Lup won't be too pissed at him when he sees her again.
When. If. When.
He hopes there's a Starblaster left to wake up on, if waking up is the right way to think of it.
He hopes until even hoping gets to be beyond the abilities of his fading brain and faltering heart. Then he settles for melting into the warm, solid safety at his back.
It's not the worst place to die, he thinks.
So he does.