Lup and Barry clone Taako
i've been dabbling in taz fic lately, and i started this and realised i only wanted to write this scene, and thus didn't want to flesh it out further LMAO
one scene isn't enough to post on ao3, but it is enough to post on tumblr ;)
It starts with Lup’s hovering.
Her metaphorical hovering, that is, not her literal hovering. It’s been a month, maybe a bit more since they’ve defeated the Hunger, and on account of being a lich with no legs, she’d have to drift from place to place for all that time.
Taako doesn’t know why she and Barry haven’t made her a new body, but whatever.
To be honest, it takes a while for Taako to even notice her metaphorical hovering, let alone be bothered by it. There’s something about being separated for over a decade that’s made it so that neither of them can be apart for too long without getting panicky about it. But as Taako soaks up sister time, his Lup quota fills up a little bit faster every day until it’s almost back to pre disappearance levels.
He’d expected it to be the same for Lup, but she’s still clingy. Still hovering. Metaphorically. It’s obvious that there's something she wants to tell him, and he’s never known her to be shy about anything, so he’s waiting for her to spit it out herself.
One night, when she’s decided to ‘sleep’ in Taako’s bed instead of Barry's, she finally plucks up the courage to ask whatever she wants to ask him.
“Taako. How much do you love me?”
“What do you want?” his eyes are closed, but if they weren’t, they’d be squinting suspiciously.
“Seriously, babe, just answer the question.”
“You’re my heart, duh,” if this is what she’s been worried about the whole time, then Taako’s gonna be pissed.
“How would you like to make that literal?”
He finally pulls open an eye to see his sister, floating ominously above him, “and what the fuck do you mean by that?”
If Lup had a face, she would use it to give him a bashful smile.
“Well… we need like, a lot of DNA samples in order to create a clone, and it was easy for Barry because he always had access to his body but–”
“But your body is dust,” Taako closes his eyes.
“Hey, we’re already technically clones of each other! We just need to do it manually this time!”
“It’s still fucking freaky, though!” he sits up on his elbows, “I don’t wanna go about my day knowing there’s a version of me growing in a test tube!”
“Then don’t think of the clone as you, dummy, it’ll be my body, I just… won’t be in it, for a while.”
“Oh my god,” he slumps back onto the mattress, “when the fuck did this become our life?”
“I think we were pretty much locked in the moment we got the IPRE acceptance letters,” she floats down to lie on Taako’s body, her not-face propped up by her hands. “Seriously, though, if you really don’t wanna do this, then it’s fine. We’ll figure something else out.”
“Oh yeah, like what? Possess some poor schmuck and spend the rest of your days running from Kravitz? No way, this is the easier option.”
“I have a feeling you’re not fully 100 percent on board with this.”
“Yeah, of course I'm not! Who wants to be cloned? But I’m doing it anyway because you’re my sister, and I want to fucking hug you.”
“God, same,” Lup sighs, “and I want to bang my husband,” she ignores Taako’s retching, “it’s just that we have to be really careful about this, now that me and Barry are working for the Raven Queen and all, we have to make sure this is super duper ethical. Cloning is super light necromancy, and she’s barely willing to let us do it.”
“Fine,” Taako raises his hand, “you have my full unequivocal consent to clone my body and bang your husband with it. I just don’t want to see the fucking thing until you’re in it. Do you need that in writing or what?”
“Actually, yeah. Like I said, the Raven Queen is being super strict about it. Kravitz says we’re lucky she’s letting us do this at all. I guess being the saviors of the universe helped us out there.”
“She also has a big soft spot for Kravitz. She’s like his Mom.”
“Aww, really?”
“He can deny it all he wants, but I know the truth. He blushes like a motherfucker when I bring it up.”
“Ha!” She barks out a laugh and sits up, “I'm definitely gonna bring that up the next time I see him,” she floats off him and makes for the wall– doors are obsolete to a lich– but she pauses, turning back to face him. He can almost imagine her face in the empty darkness that is her hood, a reflection of his own, but far more open and gentle than he’s ever allowed himself to be. “Seriously–”
“Seriously,” he raises his hand, “I'm cool with it. Now can I go the fuck back to sleep?”
“Yeah,” she says, soft, with a hint of a smile, “you can.”
If they use Taako's DNA to make Lup's new body after Taako lost some of his beauty in the Suffering Game, does that mean that he and Lup are still identical? 🥺














