Archive of Our Own

Taako always had extra colors on his skin; he never paid it too much mind. 

(That was a lie—he might not have purposely brought it to the forefront of his mind, but it killed him to wonder how he’d gotten so many extra soulmarks, and how they’d been so bright and important, without him noticing. What kind of soulmate was he, if he couldn’t remember a thing about them?)

He shrugged it off with a simple, “Soulmarks are weird, bud,” when asked about it. 

Because sure, some soulmarks were weird.

Two people brushing arms at a market place might leave a faint mark behind, maybe a bit brighter if they’d done something memorable, like spilling wine on their favorite shirt or kissing them randomly on the mouth. 

But real, forgettable strangers never left marks quite as bold and opaque as the ones Taako had. 

And if they had, he would’ve remembered getting them. 

. . .

“I just don’t understand why you won’t talk about them,” Sazed said, as the both of them packed up the remnants of their show setup. It hadn’t been a good show. 

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Taako said airily. If he kept an upbeat tone, maybe Sazed wouldn’t be too critical today. 

Sazed always had critiques for him after a bad show. And he had a lot more to say, recently—more bad than good and a whole lot more of it than when they’d first started. 

“That’s what you always say,” he snapped, and Taako knew he wasn’t getting to bed tonight before a long lecture. Sazed stopped mid-way through folding a chair down to glare at Taako. “What’s the point of keeping secrets from me? I thought we were supposed to be partners here.” 

“We are. I’m telling you the truth.” Taako said. “I’ve always had extra marks, I don’t know where they came from. They’re just… there.”

“Likely story,” he huffed, dropping the folded chair into the dirt. It clanged in on itself as it landed, loud and metallic in the vast silence of the desert. 

“Why would I lie about that?”

“I don’t know, Taako, why would you?” He was close, intense and all in Taako’s face, despite him being a few inches taller than Sazed, even without the platform shoes. “Maybe you don’t want me finding out about all those exes you’ve had. About all the people you’re sleeping around with behind my back.”

“What are you talking about, dude?” Taako stepped back. 

For one, he wasn’t lying about not knowing. And secondly, he’d never been in a serious relationship before, and he wasn’t in one now. 

He and Sazed were something —they certainly weren’t nothing—but they hadn’t even touched yet. 

“For all I know, these marks are from my family,” he argued, a touchy subject for the both of them. Runaways. Orphans. Loners. “I didn’t get to know them before I was sent away on my own, did you ever think of that, huh?”

“You have a huge blue mark down the side of your face, Taako,” he accused, his long finger snapping up, nearly tracing the mark up and down his cheek. Taako flinched back. “That’s not something you get from your sibling, your parent.”

“I don’t know , Sazed. I don’t know,” he said. He didn’t know how to get through to him that he didn’t know. They’d had this argument dozens of times at this point, and they never were able to come to a solid conclusion, only temporary truces that never lasted longer than a week. “I don’t know how else to explain to you that I don’t know.”

“I wouldn’t care,” he said, though it was laced with venom, “if you just told me the truth. I don’t care that you’ve gotten around, I expected it. I care that you keep lying to me about it.”

“I’m not lying,” he said. And then to sweeten the deal, “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

And just like that, a switch flipped in Sazed, and all the anger and accusations drained from his pale red skin. 

It wasn’t a lie. Taako wouldn’t lie to Sazed, someone he cared about. Whether they were friends or something more, Taako wouldn’t lie to someone he loved. But, recently, he wasn’t sure how much he did love Sazed, in any capacity.

Sazed sure made it hard to love him, sometimes.

“I didn’t mean to make you upset,” he said, though he was clearly the upset one, just under the surface.

“Let’s finish packing up,” Taako suggested hotly, dealing with the large folding table he’d been managing on his own. “We’ve got a long night of traveling before our next show, and we’ll both need a couple hours of beauty sleep, yeah?”

The argument was not settled, not in the slightest, but Taako had bought them at least a couple hours of peace while they packed up the wagon and started towards the next town.

. . .

It started up again when Sazed first tried to kiss him. 

Taako shoved his hand between them, safely nestled between the fabrics of their shirts. “What are you doing?”

“Kissing you?” he laughed, like Taako was an idiot. “Don’t I deserve it for the good show I prepared for you?” 

“Sazed, Sazed, my dude.” Taako put some more distance between them and retracted his hand, bringing it up, instead, to his own cheek, where he dug his clipped nails in. “I know we did a good show, but I was the star. Sizzle It Up With Taako, remember?” 

“I thought you said we were partners.”

“We are,” he said. “But you said at the start that you preferred the ‘behind the scenes’ part of the gig. And it works out perfectly—you set up before the show, I take the stage during, and in the end we pack it up together. It’s how we work.”

“I see how it is.” Sazed tipped his nose up, not looking at Taako. The distance between the both of them was quite large, at this point. “Fine.”

“O-kay,” Taako drew out, his hand absentmindedly ghosting over his mystery wine red soulmark on his forearm, one of the largest of his unknown marks. “How do you see it?”

“I’m just the roadie, the driver, the help,” he growled. “I’m not actually your equal, I never was. You won’t even let me touch you because then I’ll have proof that I’m not important to you at all.”

“Of course you’re important to me.” Taako nearly reached out, but Sazed turned his back to him and he clipped the motion short. He held his own hand, instead.

“I’m going into town,” Sazed decided, and Taako couldn’t see his face while he said it, but he knew it was puffed out and angry. “Don’t come looking for me. I’ll be back before midnight.”

To his wishes, Taako did not follow him into town. 

He brainstormed his next ideas for their upcoming shows and got ready for bed in silence. He almost felt guilty for relishing the rare moments of peace.

Taako hated their arguments, but couldn’t seem to get out of them. No matter the topic, every argument circled back to Taako’s soulmarks.

Maybe it was because Sazed had so few.

He showed off a couple, here and there, while wearing his usual attire. Sazed’s sleeveless tunics normally revealed a pale pink smudge on his elbow and a mahogany handprint on his opposite wrist. Neither were very opaque against his skin, and Taako didn’t think he had any more than those two. None that he showed, anyway.

Meanwhile, Taako had nearly a dozen, of varying opacities—and six of those he didn’t know the origins of. 

Regardless of where they came from, Taako knew the two that bothered Sazed the most were the deep blue mark that flowed elegantly from his cheekbone down to his jaw, as if from a soft caress, and then the bold, wine red mark that covered the entire outside of his left arm, like the person had bodyslammed him or rolled right over him. That one likely stretched from age, it looked like a mark a child would receive.

Both were entirely too big and too bright to be from casual acquaintances—marks like those were made by people meant to be in his life forever. They made an important mark on his life, on his body. 

But Taako didn’t know them.

Just like he didn’t know the other four brightly colored marks on his skin—burnt orange on his fingertips, sap green on his forearm, baby blue on his shoulder, and brick red on the nape of his neck.

Taako didn’t have a single memory of any one of them, and wasn’t that something? Six entire people made huge impacts on his life, but he couldn’t remember a single thing about any of them. Not a face, a voice, a feeling. 

What ever happened to them?

Did they remember him, while he forgot?

Did they miss him?

What were they like?

Would they accept him, if he ever found them again?

Taako hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep at the table until he woke up and the sun had already heated the wagon up to an uncomfortable degree. 

Sazed sat across from him, glaring at a spot on Taako’s bare bicep with a horrible ferocity.

He almost thought Sazed was mad at Taako’s wine red soulmark again, but that was his opposite arm and Sazed was never this intense without reason.

“What’s up? I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” he said, hoping to tone down the serious look in Sazed’s dark eyes. “I can drive the rest of the way.”

“There’s no point,” he said, curt and snappy. Taako had just woken up, he didn’t know what there was to be mad at him for already. “We’re already in Glamour Springs. I brought us in this morning.”

“Oh,” Taako said to fill the space. “Did something happen?”

“I don’t know,” he said, in a tone that said he absolutely did know. “Why don’t you tell me about this?”

He shoved his hand at Taako across the table like he was about to touch his face, and Taako recoiled back. But Sazed stayed perfectly still, keeping his palm open, as if to show him something in his hand.

Taako didn’t understand.

But at Sazed’s unflinching gaze, he took a closer look at his palm. 

It was violet, but just barely. The violet fought desperately to show up against Sazed’s pale red palm, like he’d spilled a full bottle of ink, but washed his hands fifty times to get rid of the evidence.

But violet was Taako’s color.

It was his color on Sazed’s palm.

“Sazed, what did you do?” 

“What did I do?” Sazed yelled, kicking his chair back as he stood to his full height in the wagon. “Look at my hand, Taako.”

Taako was not looking at his hand. Taako was trying to find where on his body this man had left his giant, overbearing handprint. 

His bicep.

Just below the baby blue handhold on his shoulder lay a black hole of a handprint, wrapping around his entire bicep. 

“Look at my hand.” Sazed repeated, but Taako couldn’t take his eyes off the intensity of the black. It was as bold and loud of any of his other marks. Sazed was as important to him as all his mystery marks. “Look at it.”

Taako blearily drew his eyes back to his faded mark on Sazed’s hand.

“Look at how much I love you, Taako,” Sazed said. “I love you so much, and this is how you repay me? What kind of a mark is this? What kind of partners leave marks like these?”

Taako didn’t know how to respond to that one. There was no placating this, not when the difference between their marks was so visible, as obvious as black and white. As opaque and transparent.

It turned out that the difference did not matter. Because their Glamour Springs show went to shit, and he and Sazed were on the run, and there were more important things to worry about than mismatched soulmarks. 

Taako had killed forty people. 

Then Sazed was gone.

And all he had left was a looted wagon and a tattooed handprint to keep him company. 

It was poor company, but he deserved it.

Taako later learned that a bold soulmark did not necessarily equate to love or kindness. Being important in someone’s life did not always mean being a good part of it.

Sazed had been an important person in Taako’s life. For better or for worse, Taako would never forget him, and the mark left on him proved it. Meanwhile, Taako meant almost nothing to Sazed. His mark on Sazed was so faint, it may even fade away one day. 

Soulmarks didn’t have to be reciprocal.

And so for the first time, Taako worried about the identities behind his other marks.

. . .

Taako’s next team up was long after that. 

He’d stuck to solo missions for as long as he could—he’d done the one-man show deal before, he could easily fall back into that rhythm.

Unfortunately, these two boys were starting to grow on him. 

They started small jobs together—begrudgingly. Taako had meant to take up that first Craig’s List ad alone , but the other two caught up to him before he could finish it. Then the first job led to the second, and the second to the third, and the rest, apparently, was history. 

Well, when you stumbled upon an ancient relic and were transported to a secret headquarters on the moon , you tended to become more-than-acquaintances pretty quickly.

But they were weird. 

Not weird like how Sazed was weird—Taako knew he could definitely trust these guys—but they were weird about soulmarks, too. Maybe they were weird like Taako in that way. 

He wouldn’t assume, though. He’d assumed once and ended up with several dozen dead fans, an abruptly halted TV career, and a black brand of a soulmark he’d never asked for. 

But there were times—like when Killian asked Merle about a dark orange soulmark on his forehead, or when No-3113 mentioned the green mark on Magnus’ ankle—they didn’t like talking about their past marks either.

And another thing!

Taako didn’t know much about social interaction (that was a given, he prefered to go solo, thank you very much). But he did know that there was a time in every social interaction where people let each other know when or where it was alright to touch them. He knew because he hated those conversations and never entered them willingly.

But he had yet to have that talk with Merle or Magnus. Both of those goons loved interacting with people, touching people, but neither of them have attempted to break down that wall yet with Taako.

And it had been months. They’d definitely accidentally touched, at least once—especially with all three of them having the inclination towards never wearing sleeves for some goddamn reason. 

Taako knew he’d accidentally brushed hands with Killian at some point (exchanging violet and pastel green marks), and he’d definitely nicked a nail (turquoise) on Angus’ collarbone when he’d shoved him from the Rockport train, and he’d even gotten a faint mark from Garfield (navy blue) when he’d bought his first batch of equipment from Fantasy Costco. 

But half a year in and Taako had yet to receive any marks from his other two traveling companions. That didn’t seem right and Taako couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the three of them.

“You guys have soulmarks, right?” he asked, one night, as they lay in their bunks all together.

“I’ve got a couple,” Pringles said in his groggy voice, and Taako jerked upright in his bed.

In all honesty, he’d forgotten Pringles was their fourth roommate. 

He’d kind of been in and out of the brig, lately, and Taako hadn’t been paying much attention to his comings and goings. Apparently, he was a free man for now.

“Ri-ight,” Taako replied, instead. “Anyone else?”

“I think everybody has at least one mark, Taako,” Merle said.

“Oh, that’d be so lonely to not have any!” And the sadness in Magnus’ voice was palpable. “I can’t imagine not having anyone leave a mark on you.”

“Maybe nothing is better than a bad one,” Taako said darkly, an icy chill running up his arm where he knew the black mark laid.

“Oh, no, Taako,” Magnus said, and the blankets rustled around below him until Taako was face to face with Magnus in the darkness. “Have you never met a loving soulmate before?”

“Of course I have, man, what are you talking about?” Though he might’ve spoken too quickly or too defensively, because now Merle was also sitting upright in bed and looking up at him, too.

He knew they were both looking at the giant, deep blue mark on his face, thinking that was the one he was ashamed of, instead of the awful black one hidden away under his shirt. Taako didn’t know if he had to be ashamed of this blue one, despite it being the first thing people noticed about him. Most people were polite enough not to bring it up anyway.

“Let me give you a soulmark,” Magnus said, sounding oddly serious for a second. He’d told them about his wife—on numerous occasions—Taako knew how important she’d been to him. How important she still was to him. “I know you’re into the whole ‘Taako’s Good Out Here’ shtick, but I promise, having a caring soulmark is so worth it.”

“I…” He never realized how much he’d craved that. The closest thing he’d gotten to a loving relationship was Sazed, and look how that went. He’d never met the rest of his brightly colored soulmates, though they’d definitely made their marks on him.

“And that’s gonna be you?” he joked, but he sounded a bit too hopeful, there. 

Taako didn’t tell him that he doubted the touch would work. 

“It will,” Magnus said, not even doubting it a little bit. 

Taako didn’t tell him they’d already touched half a dozen times by now, without any mark. But he also didn’t pull away.

“Yeah, it will,” Merle egged them on softly, like he also knew it might not work. “Let him give you a soulmark.”

So he let Magnus get his hopes up.

They clasped forearms, veiled by the safety of their dark bedroom. He pictured Magnus hand leaving a bright handprint on the inside of his arm. Maybe red, orange. Something so oversaturated and bright and annoying to match that loud personality of his.

He imagined it as he fell asleep, but didn’t dare get his hopes up.

Taako didn’t look at his arm in the morning, but he knew nothing had changed.

These guys were so important to him—objectively, they were already a huge part of his life. But they refused to leave a mark on his skin, and Taako couldn’t understand why.

. . .

“Oh, wow,” Angus said, apropos of nothing, halfway through their spellcasting lesson of the day. 

Taako had taken to lying face down on the floor. He’d had a long day, and an even longer week—nearly dying by giant, growing pink crystals; landing a date and a beautiful, new sapphire soulmark on the back of his hand; watching three mysterious letters get scorched into the wall via umbrella—and he’s tired. 

“I’m just resting my eyes, Agnes,” he muttered into the cold tile floor. “Continue on with Mage Hand, if you would.”

“Of course, sir,” he said, and the telltale sound of magic whipping into the air whooshed around them. “But I was wondering…”

“Well, go on, the suspense is killing me,” he joked, still with his face pressed into the floor.

“I mean, Magnus sure does make a first impression, doesn’t he, sir?”

That didn’t make any sense.

“What?” he said, finally curious enough to pull himself into a sitting position. 

“Your soulmark,” he said, gesturing to the back of his own neck for reference. “I just realized it matched my own.”

Angus noted the bright red mark covering his own ear and temple, the only visible parts from where Magnus had ruffled his hair, barely a few days after meeting him.

Taako could only blink at the mark in front of him.

He didn’t understand. 

“I don’t…” Taako didn’t know what to say, for once. He didn’t have the words to fill the silence. Not even a joke, this time. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you sure it’s the same red?” 

But it was obviously the same color. He couldn’t easily view the back of his neck, but he’d spent enough time around mirrors during his travels to know that he and Angus shared a soulmate. 

How could it have been Magnus, though?

Taako hadn’t known Magnus before that first Craig’s List ad. They couldn’t have exchanged marks earlier than that, he would’ve remembered someone so loud and so bold—it transferred into his mark. 

“What about Merle?” Taako asked, almost frantically, not that he’d admit it.

“What about Merle, sir?” 

“Color, what color is Merle’s soulmark?”

Angus, instead of answering, undid the top button of his shirt and pulled the collar to one side. Beside Taako’s small, violet pockmark on his collarbone sat a sap green swoosh that fit perfectly in the junction between Angus’ neck and shoulder. 

“He patted me on the shoulder, once,” Angus said, smiling softly. “He does it a lot more now that the first mark is done with.”

But Taako wasn’t hearing him. Not with how hard his heartbeat thrummed in his ears.

The mark on Angus’ neck was the exact color as the green blob on Taako’s forearm. 

He couldn’t understand it, but at the same time, he could picture it so perfectly.

Magnus, clapping him on the back a bit too recklessly, and laying a hand on the skin on his neck. Merle, humorously annoyed with something he’d said, punching him in the side, only for Taako to block it with a quick arm. 

These events hadn’t happened. But Taako could so easily imagine they had.

And the proof was there.

Something had happened, he couldn’t deny that. But, at the same time, he didn’t know what had happened. How had this happened? How had he met two of his soulmates so long ago and then forgotten them? How had they forgotten him as well? 

Were his other marks like this? Would he someday find four more best friends who felt the same way about soulmarks, only to find out they’d been friends and soulmates from over a decade prior? 

“I’m gonna have to cut today’s lesson short, little man,” Taako said, not waiting for Angus’ response before he left the dome. He wouldn’t have heard it anyway, not with the way his own thoughts pounded between his ears. 

. . .

It took some time and some investigating (and some forgetting about the entire ordeal due to more life-threatening concerns at the moment), but Taako finally found all the pieces to the puzzle, thanks to Fisher Jr. and no thanks at all to Lucretia.

His family. 

He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten—been forced to forget—his entire family.

Even after getting their memories back, it was hard, he wouldn’t lie, to get back to normal. 

So much of their lives had changed in that decade they’d spent apart. And some part of him would always blame Lucretia for taking his family away from him—but he had to admit that she was still included in that family, too.

After saving the world, but before moving on to bigger and better things, the seven of them somewhat reverted back to their old habits, rooming together in one of the moon’s larger dome housings. 

They had more guests coming and going than before—mainly Angus, but Killian, Carey, and No-3113 made enough visits for them to have at least one extra guest room prepared at any moment—which interrupted their flow enough to remind them that they weren’t still on the Starblaster and looking for the Light.

Which was good in some ways, shitty in some others.

Good, because it took some of the panic away, when they woke up with nightmares they’d forgotten about until recently. Seeing Angus touring the halls reminded Taako he wasn’t in danger of losing his family again so soon and so violently. 

But that also meant he remembered everything that followed their days on the Starblaster. Which wasn’t always great. Like when he felt a pang in his chest from missing Lucretia and wanting to pay a visit, only to remember her actions halfway there. On several occasions he’d made an abrupt about-face back to his own room, feeling alone and worse than before.

. . .

Taako often dreamt of his soulmarks. 

Usually nothing too important or memorable. 

Some nights, he remembered the feeling of Davenport’s hand in his—the burnt orange mark on his fingers and the soft feeling in his chest it left behind, knowing that his captain was at his side. 

Other nights it was Lup’s wine red mark up and down his arm. They were babies when they first touched, of course, but the feeling of lying beside her, the warmth of her skin, he knew it was there, even while she was a lich. Her warmth never went away.

Tonight it was Lucretia, though. 

The day she first touched him was hard to forget, he was surprised he ever forgot it in the first place.

It was one of the beginning cycles, where both Lup and Barry both died early on in the year. Taako hadn’t been extremely close with the others yet—of course they were closer than anyone else he’d ever known, but none of them could ever compare to Lup.

He’d gone to bed heartbroken and empty and alone. He didn’t want anyone else talking to him.

Lup was gone. Barry was gone. Magnus was severely injured, and the rest of them weren’t much better off.

Taako went to bed hoping he would wake up in a new cycle. Or maybe he’d wake up dead.

The year just started. He couldn’t go the whole cycle without his sister at his side. His wine red soulmark only emphasized the loneliness as he fell asleep without anyone against his arm.

He didn’t wake up in a new cycle. 

Taako woke up halfway through the night, forgetting Lup was dead.

He made it to her bedroom door, swinging it open and crashing to the floor, sobbing, at the sight of her empty, still-made bed. 

The barren Starblaster carried sound well, too well, because Lucretia’s neighboring door slammed open in seconds and she had to bear witness to his midnight breakdown.

“She won’t be gone forever, Taako,” she said softly, kneeling down beside him, looking angelic in her white nightgown. “We just have to last this cycle and she’ll be back, they both will.”

“I know.” His voice was watery and awful. “I know that, but—”

He couldn’t finish. This sentence, this year. He couldn’t finish it.

“Taako—” Lucretia didn’t quite get her words out either. Neither of them were the best at emoting, especially under these circumstances. 

She reached a hand out, slowly, like approaching an animal known to bite.

Taako didn’t move, transfixed by her nearing palm that came more and more into focus as he blinked heavy tears out of his eyes. He was hollow, empty, barely a shell of a person, without Lup. 

But it was worse, because instead of feeling nothing , he felt everything . It was like every emotion in the entire plane, negative and positive and everything in between, surged into Taako every time he thought of his late sister. 

He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t do it alone.

A soft hand came pulling him back.

She wasn’t warm like Lup, who had fire running through her veins since the day she was born. Lucretia was cool and stony and under control. 

Where Lup’s warmth against his arm enveloped Taako and fueled him from the inside out, Lucretia’s coolness on his face pulled him up and kept him afloat.

Taako opened his eyes, and Lucretia’s face was up close in front of his, her hand barely ghosting his cheek anymore. He took his hand, finally in charge of his own body again, and pressed her hand back into his skin like he’d die in its absence.

“You can stay with me,” she offered. “Until next year.”

He could barely bring himself to nod. “Until next year.”

. . .

But Taako opened his eyes again, and he was alone in the Bureau of Benevolence, with his hand cupping his own cheek. 

His eyes were puffy and wet.

“How embarrassing,” he said, in a low voice. “Crying in your sleep, again.”

He brushed the fresh tear tracks from his skin, but couldn’t bring himself to take his hand off the dark blue soulmark on his face.

Taako couldn’t see himself going to Lucretia’s room, not now, even if he’d done it for a whole year and then some, back then. 

In all honesty, he didn’t plan on bothering Lup either, he really didn’t. 

It had been a long decade without them.

He’d planned to trek the hallways until he tired himself out and either passed out on the floor or cried himself to sleep once more. 

But his feet had taken him straight to her door, like he had that first night without her. This time, though, he had full knowledge that his sister would be here, alive and well, once he opened this door. 

She would be there. He knew she would.

Taako held his breath. And pulled the door open.

In the bed was not just one person, not two, but three people, fast asleep. 

Lup remained in the center—it was her bed, after all. But latched onto either side of her were both Barry and Lucretia. 

Color him surprised. 

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, uncertain if he planned to advance further into the room or retreat immediately. But another body caught his attention. 

Magnus lay in a nest of spare blankets and pillows on the floor beside the bed, barely a foot away from being kicked in the face. 

Taako smiled, though, and his clammy hand finally left his cheek, though, it snaked its way down his neck and opposite arm, ticking off each soulmark, before finally falling at his side.

He didn’t creep into Lup’s bed and squeeze his way between her and their other friends. He might’ve done that, before, maybe even last night, but not now. He settled on the floor, daintily on the edge of the little nest Magnus had made. 

And he’s barely snuggled in for two seconds before Magnus rolls over and lugs him into a bear hug in his sleep. 

Which was fine.

It was surprisingly fine, actually.

And what was even more fine was the rest of the crew finding their way into Lup’s room at various times in the night. Davenport joined their blanket nest barely an hour later, and Magnus actually woke up for that one. Merle found his way to the foot of Lup’s bed, carefully and comfortably wedged between everyone’s legs. 

They weren’t the same as they had been, all those years ago, but they’re here. They might not have been all on the same page, maybe there still were tensions and grudges between them, and maybe they just weren’t the same people they had been back then. But they were still getting used to each other again. 

Their love for one another never changed, not truly, not permanently. 

They’re a family. And they’re back together again.