Work Text:
Angus drummed his heels as he waited for the signal. The Director had promised to let him see his friends as soon as they had finished debriefing, but they were taking so much longer than he’d expected. He was about to explode from anticipation.
He wasn’t entirely sure what it was about Magnus, Merle, and Taako that made him so excited to see them. They’d only spent a few hours together on that train, but it had been -- nice. They were familiar, comfortable in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. He’d worked with all sorts of people over the years, but it had never exactly been appropriate to pursue anything more than a working relationship. Angus was a professional, after all. He had standards to uphold. Even between cases, though, no one really seemed willing to get close to him. That was fine, usually, it made it easier to tell when someone wanted something from him. In retrospect, it was stiflingly lonely. Meeting the Reclaimers, as he now knew they were called, was like his first day at his Grandpa’s musty old mansion. They were drawing the curtains and airing out the guest rooms. Polishing the silver, weeding the gardens. There was sunshine and a kettle whistling on the stove and the clamor of people -- people! They’d mocked him and threatened him, not to mention how they had completely derailed his investigation, but they’d helped to save the day, and they made him laugh. And they hadn’t meant him any harm, not really. Well, Taako threw him off the train, but he was fine now.
His stone of farspeech crackled. That was his cue!
“Hello, sirs!” he chirped, and he heard a gratifying gasp.
Madame Director explained his recruitment, and the boys teased him in that well-meaning yet overly aggressive way they had. He beamed at them, basking in the attention. Magnus grinned back, and Merle bared his teeth, but Taako just looked confused. There was a hesitant smile, like this was too good to be true, and a haunted look in his eyes.
“Could’ve sworn you died,” he said.
Damn, Angus was hoping he’d have forgotten about that.
“Angus, this is embarrassing, I thought-- if you put a gun to my head I would’ve sworn you died.”
“It was super good to see you though,” Magnus interrupted. He elbowed Taako, who frowned.
“It’s so good to see you. I thought you--”
This was going too far. He tried to nudge Taako away from the truth. “You guys destroyed the train, and we all,” he hesitated, “we all jumped off of it, and you gave me the only remaining piece of flatware from my grandpa’s set.”
The boys bickered among themselves, suitably distracted. Angus felt ill. Maybe joining the Bureau had been a bad idea, after all. He was going to be caught. Someone said his name, and he looked up.
“Well, good to see you, Angus.”
“Yeah, this has been great,” said Taako. He needed to calm down. This was fine. These were his friends, and they didn’t suspect a thing.
“And you’re not dead, right? Just to double check.”
Angus shook his head, and denied it with the careful cheerfulness of the Definitely and Deliberately Innocent.
“Nope. Still… corporeal…”
Take the bait, damn it, thought Angus. Choose the path of least logical resistance I am offering to you.
Angus held out a hand. Maybe physical confirmation of his continued existence would help Taako get over this little stumbling block. Besides, it was polite to greet one’s new coworkers with a friendly handshake.
"It's a pleasure to be working with you again, sirs."
Taako squinted at him, understandably suspicious. Angus glanced down at his hand, then at Taako, then back at his hand. He could wait. Magnus looked back and forth between the two, and bounced on his heels. Every so often, he made to surge forward and shake Angus’s hand to end the awkward moment, but he stopped himself every time, trapped in a restless little dance. Merle nonchalantly scraped some dirt out from under his fingernails and flicked it onto Madame Director’s spotless carpet. She paid him no mind, confused and clearly unsettled by the Western standoff between two employees in her private office. Hopefully she would dismiss it as another instance of the reclaimers’ natural peculiarities. If she were to become suspicious, that could spell bad news for Angus.
Angus absorbed this information and pushed it to the back of his mind. Taako was close to breaking, he just needed one final push.
Angus raised an eyebrow. Taako sighed dramatically and grabbed his hand, and the tension whooshed out of the room. He immediately made a face and dropped it again.
"Ugh, why is your hand so clammy and, and-" he floundered for a better word, the usual extravagant flourishing of his arms with which he ordinarily punctuated each statement becoming more wild with each passing second.
"Diaphanous?" suggested Angus, ever helpful. Too helpful, in fact, and not nearly subtle enough. He silently cursed his natural benevolence.
"What's diathamous mean?" said Magnus.
“Is it like diaphoretic?” said Merle. “Maybe diatomaceous?”
“I’m sorry, do you have a tragic backstory as a fucking fantasy spelling bee champ? Where did this come from?”
“I am a trained cleric and pretty damn well-traveled, not to mention a grown-ass dwarf with more gray in my beard than anyone here. You’re not the only one with hidden depths!”
“Hey, fuck you, old man. You’re just jealous I’m more narratively compelling.”
Merle scoffed. Magnus cut him off.
“But what’s it mean? Why is Angus clammy? Are you okay?”
"It doesn't matter. I just have poor circulation,” said Angus.
"Poor circulation, huh? I think I have something for that..." said Merle, already rifling through his rucksack. The Director looked alarmed. Angus backed up a step.
"Are you trying to give me drugs? My dad told me not to accept drugs from strangers."
"We're not strangers," said Magnus. He gave a big, soppy grin that would have been very intimidating to the uninitiated.
"No, you are my friends and I love you very much, but you are certainly strange."
"You're not wrong," said Taako. Magnus nodded, and shrugged in the international sign language for “hey, what can you do?”
"So that's a no on the drugs?"
“That’s a no on the drugs, Merle,” interrupted the Director. “Now, if that’s all, I need the three of you to do me one last favor.” She pulled out a scroll with Captain Captain Bane’s information on it and sent the boys down to deliver it to the voidfish. Angus waved them off, relieved. For such nice people, they had a habit of endangering his well-being that might have been concerning if he wasn’t already dead.