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"Hey, whatever happened to your little sidekick you had?"
Taako was focused on his work: a light, simple egg white quiche with mushroom and leeks and feta, for which he had forgotten to separate the egg whites beforehand and thus had to slave over them now while Lup chopped the vegetables behind him and Magnus and Merle lazed around doing nothing in front of him. Well, doing nothing and also asking dumb questions. "You're gonna have to be more specific, pally-al."
"With your cooking show," Magnus said. "You had a--like a lovely assistant guy, who set up the ingredients and then just did little cute stuff behind you. Where'd he end up?"
"If there was any cute stuff on my show, it was all me."
"C'mon, he was--ah, what was his name, I know it started with an S--"
Merle ticked his tongue, thinking. "Was it Susan?"
"I hate Susan," Taako said automatically, not looking up from his eggs.
"No, it had a 'ay' sound in it--"
"Was it Saysan?"
Magnus snapped his fingers. "Saysan. Sayyy...zeb. Sazeb?"
Eggshell split unceremoniously in his fingers, and his hand was covered in goo. Taako wrinkled his nose and dropped the wasted egg onto the towel beside the bowls.
Lup was on his shoulder now, her knife dangerously close to his face. "You had a cooking show?"
"Yeah, hey, actually--" Taako wiped the egg off his hand and pointed a long-nailed finger at Magnus. "Since when do you know anything about Sazed?"
"Sazed! Yeah! I was close!"
Lup tapped the flat of her blade against his cheek. "Who's Saze-ed?"
"Okay, dude--” He waved her off. “Back off, I'm talkin' to Magman.”
"I mean, you traveled all over the place,” Magnus said as Lup turned to stand beside Taako and lean against the counter. “You must've stopped in Raven's Roost at some point."
"No, I didn't. That town was in the fuckin' sky. It's, like, impossible to get to."
"Well, you musta come near it--"
"Again, in the fucking sky. We made a point of not going near it."
"You stopped in Green Glade," Magnus finally settled on the truth. "Which is, like, less than a week's trip, so it still counts as close, and I'd heard about the show and Iiiii thought it'd be cool to check out--"
Merle was smirking. "Was it for a girl?"
"Yes. Fine. God. Julia said something about how it'd be nice to have a man who could cook, so I decided it was worth taking a week to check out this epic culinary wizard and--th-that's not the point. The point is that I saw you and Sazed, and he was very cute and charming, and I am curious where he is now."
His thumb went through another egg. God damn it.
"Fuck if I know. Sorry to disappoint,” he said. “He ditched me right after the last show."
He was probably gonna have to redo his nails now, get something less prone to stabbing stuff. As darling as these bedazzled extra-pointy press-ons were, maybe it was time to go for somethin’ a little more natch.
"You alright, kiddo?" Merle asked, craning his head up to see Taako wiping up the broken eggs.
Taako narrowed his eyes at him. "Don't 'kiddo' me, old man."
"Oh, for pete’s--I get to 'kiddo' you if you get to 'old man' me, buster. Those are a package deal, those are mutually--uh, inclusive terms--"
"Why'd he ditch you?" Magnus cut in. "I thought it looked like you had a great thing going."
"Yeah, me too, but apparently not,” Taako scoffed. “He, uh, he wanted a li'l more spotlight, y'know? A sort of co-hosting gig. And I said no, cus--"
"Whaaat? Why?"
"Because of the merch! Because he wanted--" Taako shook his head. "Look, the wagon was already painted and it would've been just awkward to add 'and Sazed' to everything. It was the brand."
"Aw, yeah, 'Sizzle It Up with Taako and Sazed!' I love that!"
Smash numer three. The eggs were a lost cause and he was defs gonna lose these nails. He smushed it the rest of the way under his palm and looked up at Magnus for the first time since the conversation started. "Okay, Magpie, here's the sitch. As cute and charming you may have thought Sazed was, he was equally a whiny douche and also a legitimate mass murderer. Savvy?"
Lup's knife clattered onto the floor.
Magnus blinked. "Oh, damn. Really?"
"Yeah, really. I told you Sizzle It Up got canceled cus folks got food poisoning? It was actually straight-up poison poisoning, he was the perp, I took the heat, and he ran away first chance he got. And I never saw him again and hope I never do. End of story."
"That--" Merle sighed. "I'm sorry. That sucks, man."
"Yeah."
Taako crossed to the trash can at the side of the counter, dug a lightly-charmed orange stick out from his apron pocket, and started prodding at the edges of the darling bedazzled-extra-pointies. The charm kept the stick damp and warm enough to loosen the glue pretty easily--they popped off painlessly. Underneath, his natural fingernails were short and plain but still neatly, punctiliously maintained.
When the press-on nails were gone, Magnus carefully stretched a hand across the counter, quietly offering for Taako to take. "Do you...wanna talk about it?"
"No. I don't. I didn't wanna talk in the first place." He returned to his egg towel and shook the shells into the trash. "This kitchen's for cooking. You chucklefucks find someplace else to go be stupid."
He flung the towel over his shoulder, careful to keep the wet side facing out, and didn't look back at the counter until he heard Magnus and Merle's footsteps leave the room.
Lup had picked up her knife from the floor and was now digging through a drawer for a clean one. She slid the drawer closed with her hip.
"So are you a fugitive now?" she asked. "Taking the heat for poisoning folks?"
"Well, I was for a while, but I guess saving the whole multiverse cleared my name of everything."
He plucked an egg out of his basket, but didn't crack it--just sort of rolled it around under a light fingertip. Lup wasn't returning to her task, either. She sidled up close to him, pushing the bowl of yolks out of the way, and gently nudged him with her elbow.
"Tell me more about your show. I've been out of the loop." She grinned. "Get it? Out of the Lup. And into the umbrella."
He looked her over, silent, chin in his hand.
She lightly kicked his foot. "What's the tea?"
But he kept his mouth shut and his face neutral, because his insides were a sudden wave of red-hot rage--at Sazed, at himself, at Lup, at Lucretia. He wouldn't have ever needed Sazed if he'd had Lup with him. And he and Barry could have found her, would have found her eventually, if they'd gotten the chance--hell, one little nudge from Gundren Rockseeker and they all but did find her--she was right there under their noses the whole time, and then she was in his hand the whole time, and Lucretia knew all along and never did a thing and let her be stuck in there, and let him be alone out there, and he could have been so much better if he hadn't been alone, and why did Lup even abandon them in the first place, why the fuck did she think that was a good idea for a solo mission, why would she ever go on a solo mission at all when he was right there and willing to go with her wherever and would have taken literally anything over being alone--
So, instead of answering Lup’s question, he said, “Hey, next time you see Lucretia, can you punch her in the face for me?”
“Hard no.” Lup hefted herself up to sit on the counter and gave Taako a sideways look. “She’s so old by now, I think my fist would get caught in all her wrinkles and I’d be stuck there forever.”
Taako smirked and shrugged. “Well, if you can’t support my revenge quest, thanks for at least humoring me in pettiness.”
“Oh, I’m a double-edged sword, pardner. Her getting older means she’ll keel over sooner, and if you don’t forgive her before then--”
“Alright, stop.” He waved a hand, turning back to his eggs and bowls. “Forget I even mentioned her. We’re not talking about her.”
“Why did you mention her?”
“Shut up. You know why.”
Because he shouldn’t have to tell her this story. He shouldn’t have to tell her anything. Because she should’ve just been there.
“I mean, there ain’t really much more to say,” he finally relented. “I had a...I guess Creesh would’ve been the one who set me up with it, I can’t remember. But I had a little traveling kitchen where I’d...cook these meals and show off how to do it, do some magicking at the same time, make a whole spectacle of it. And a couple years into it I collected an assistant, and I thought he and I were chill, and it turns out I was wrong. I stopped in a town called Glamour Springs and made some folks a nice meal and he poisoned it.”
He finished separating the egg in his hands and absentmindedly rubbed at the towel on his shoulder.
“People started dying, we bounced, and he kept bouncin’. Haven’t seen or heard from him since and hopefully he’s dead in a ditch somewhere.”
Lup stayed quiet for a few moments, waving her feet back and forth, careful not to knock her bare heels against the drawers. Taako's basket of uncracked eggs was getting pretty empty--just a couple more and they'd be ready to combine with the veggies and get to the actual cookin'.
"What was the meal?" Lup asked.
"Thirty-garlic-clove chicken with elderberry garnish."
Lup winced, drawing a knuckle up to her teeth. "Oh my God, did he switch the elderberry for deadly nightshade?"
And with that the basket overturned, and the last couple eggs were obliterated on the tile.
"I thought I did!" Taako shouted. "I thought my stupid fucking transmuting turned the berries into nightshade for no fuckin' reason, and so then I couldn't cook and I could barely do any kinda magic for five fucking years cus I was scared I was gonna be stupid again and kill a million more people. But you know what it was? It was just plain old arsenic. He just plain old fuckin' doused the bird in arsenic and it was my own damn fault for being stupid again cus--" He bared his teeth in a sad, sick grin. "I got a fun fuckin' trivia fact for ya, Penelupe. D'ya know what it smells like when you cook arsenic?"
Lup wrinkled her nose. "Doesn't it smell like gar--"
"It smells like fucking garlic, and I don't know if you remember, but I was cookin' with thirty fucking cloves of garlic, because I was too goddamn stupid to notice that maybe this poor little overshadowed bitch in the driver's seat might be a little sick of Taako Time and wanted me dead in disgrace. And--"
His voice broke, strangled on a cough on a laugh on a sob, and he stopped. His socks were coated in slick yolk and sticky shells.
Lup hadn't moved from her spot on the counter. Her fingers were clenched around the granite edge between her knees. She knew they just had to ride this out, let all the screams and swears and energy out and then calm down later, but...well, usually she was the one screaming and swearing and he was waiting to hold her hand afterward. And geez louise, she hadn't seen him this riled up since...since almost before she could remember, since they were kids, the two of them all alone against the universe.
But he was stopped now. He stood still in the middle of the kitchen floor, shoulders slumped and breath heavy, eyes wet and unfocused.
"And Magnus is right,” he said quietly. “I should've just let him have--have a little spotlight, put his name on the fuckin' t-shirts. I mean, he was the one printing the t-shirts anyways, he could've--" He trailed off and shook his head. "But I didn't know. And for five, six years, I didn't cook for anyone but myself, cus I just knew one of these days I was gonna end up poisoning it."
Lup jumped down from the counter and rushed to him. "Taako, no, no, you didn't try t--"
"Try to poison myself? Motes and beams, Madam Lich."
She slid a little in the slippery mess, but steadied herself by grabbing his hands. He let her hold him, let his forehead fall against hers.
"I cannot lose you," she said softly. "Okay? Got it? I cannot lose you."
"Yeah, I got it." He sniffed. “Self-preservation always trumped anyways. All the regret in the world can’t beat the coward instinct.”
Lup squeezed his hands. "Okay. In on three. One, two, three."
They both took a deep breath in, a carefully practiced routine.
"Out on one. Three, two, one."
They breathed out.
Gradually Taako seemed to relax. His shoulders slumped and his hands loosened. Lup talked him through a few more breaths, and his head slid down to rest on her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug.
"Alright," she said, squeezing until she heard a pop in his spine and he smacked her on the back of the head. She let him go. "I'll clean this up and finish the quiche. You go find Magnus and Merle and let them take care of you for a little bit while I call the bone boys."
“I can clean it--”
“Nah, I still have like a jillion spell slots to burn today. Here.”
A wave of her hand and a puff of glitter, and Taako’s socks were clean and dry. Another, and the floor was the same, not a trace of egg left.
“Go.” She firmly patted his shoulder and pitched her voice a few tones higher. "Get the phock out of my kitchen, you animal. Git!"
He obeyed numbly. It wasn’t really her kitchen, any more than it was his--which is to say that it was equally both of theirs. Technically this was Merle’s house, but all the kitchen surfaces were very pointedly not set at dwarf height. But whatever--the kitchen belonged to whoever was cooking at the moment, and for now that was definitely not Taako.
In the living room, Magnus and Merle were leaning on each arm of the small couch, the former painting his nails and the latter perusing through a thick book; Taako tilted his head to see the cover. The X-Treme Teen Bible, unsurprisingly. They both looked up at his entrance.
“Want me to do yours next?” Magnus asked quietly, waving his little red bottle of polish.
“Pass. Imma keep these bad boys naked for a while.”
Merle closed his bible and slid it onto the endtable beside him. His soulwood arm stretched forward, palm up, offering. “Hold my hand, child of mine.”
Taako rolled his eyes, but slapped his hand into Merle's and flumped onto the couch. Magnus's bicep made for a very nice pillow.
"I'm sorry for all of that," Magnus murmured, leaning his head down to rest on Taako's, slightly mashing his hat to the side.
"It's fine."
"For the record, I no longer think Sazed is cute or charming, and I also hope he is dead in a ditch."
Taako smiled slightly and patted Magnus's knee. "'Preciate it, big guy."
With Merle's steady hand keeping him anchored on one side and Magnus's warm bulk on the other, Taako could feel the last hot sparks of his anger and anxiety fading away, replaced by cloudlike quiet. This was nice. As much as he loved having Lup back and Kravitz and Angus and everyone, it'd been a while since he'd had some plain old Tres Horny Bois action, just the three of them. He kind of missed having these two bozos as the center of his universe.
As soon as he had the thought, though, a glowing rift sliced into the air above them, and a white shirt and pair of denim pants were impatiently trying to shove through it.
"Outta the way!" Barry exclaimed, tumbling into the room. He flung his scythe onto his back and vaulted over the coffee table. "Cute husband coming through!"
Taako held in a snort at the sound of a crash in the kitchen and a cheer from Lup; Merle didn't hide his snickering.
"There you are!" Now Kravitz was stepping through the rift, smiling warmly. "How are you doing, love? I truly, truly can't express how good it is to see you."
Taako lazily flashed his free hand in a peace sign. "Sup, homie?"
The rift zipped shut. Magnus shifted to give Kravitz some room to settle into the couch, but Kravitz waved him back into place and sat primly atop his lap. Taako forfeited what had now become an informal arm wrestle with Merle, and turned slightly to accept his boyfriend's greeting kiss.
"Oh, good," Kravitz said, gently taking Taako's hand. "You finally took your nails off."
Taako wiggled his fingers. "I thought you liked the sparkly nails."
"Sure, but I was gettin' tired of topping," Kravitz grinned.
"Kravy!” Taako swatted Kravitz’s chest with the back of his hand. “Not in front of the boys!"
Magnus snorted and rested his chin on Kravitz’s shoulder. “No, please, tell us more! Roast him! Tell us what a pillow princess he is!”
“Excuse me, roast him, he’s the one complaining that it’s so exhausting, boo-hoo-hoo--”
“If Taako’s a princess, that must make me empress or something, cus I--”
“Nope--Merle--disgusting--this conversation ends now. Kravitz, I’m divorcing you for bringing it up, effective immediately.”
“Marry me first. Then you can divorce me.”
Taako rolled his eyes and stretched his arms above his head with a small yawn. He shifted his position on the couch, turning to lean back against Kravitz and Magnus and lay his legs over Merle's lap. All this dredged-up emotional whiplash had him tuckered out, and he was ready to take a little nap until Lup was done with his quiche. He closed his eyes and pulled the brim of his hat down over them.
And then the penny dropped.
At the same time, Merle said, "Did you just--"
And Magnus said, "Wait, Kravitz, did you just ask Taako to marry you?"
"--did you just propose?"
Taako's eyes popped open.
He sat rod-upright and pushed back his hat. Kravitz looked just as surprised as Taako was, his dark eyes darting from Merle to Magnus and back again like a manic grasshopper.
“I didn’t--that w--” His cheeks were glowing white with panic. Poor fella looked like he was gonna skip the skeleton face altogether and jump right from his handsome-man-bod to a useless floating ball of light. “I j--I meant--that’s not--”
But Taako grinned and cut off his nervous stammering with a kiss. When he pulled away, he replaced his lips with a finger to keep Kravitz quiet.
His universe could stand to expand its center. He could fit more than one or two people in it.
“You one hundred percent did. But I wantcha to hold that thought for a sec.”
He tossed his hair back over one shoulder and lifted his chin toward the kitchen, proud and glad and shameless.
“Hey, Lulu?” he called. “I don’t think you’ll wanna miss out on this one.”