#ilesii

Even as he watches, the goliath man’s fist collides firmly with Magnus’ temple and he goes down hard. The onlooking tavern-goers gasp and the man spits angrily, lip curled as he kicks at Magnus’ side.

And with that, Taako has had enough. “Hey, fucker, over here,” he calls, and then he casts Banish.

The look of shock on the asshole’s face is so, so good. Taako wants to cast something more violent and more destructive, but something’s wrong with Magnus so the most important thing is removing the danger as quickly and efficiently as possible so he can figure out what the hell is going on.

Magnus recoils when Taako reaches out a hand to help him up, lashing out sloppily. Taako dodges the blow and scowls. “I am trying to assist you, you thankless reprobate!” he snaps, though he knows his tone lacks it’s usual bite. He’s worried, okay? Call him soft but a hundred years is a long time in which to learn to care for someone.

Magnus pauses, and finally his eyes focus on Taako’s face. “Taako?” he asks, uncertain, and his voice is so much rougher and so much more fragile than usual.

“Come on, big guy,” sighs Taako, and pulls him to his feet. “Let’s go somewhere a little more…private.”

Eyes follow them out the door and into the night air but Taako pretends not to notice. There is no way those people have not realized by this point that he and Magnus are, in fact, two of the Seven Birds, the heroes of Story and Song, but he doesn’t care. They hadn’t lifted a hand to intervene in that fight so honestly? Fuck them.

Taako leads Magnus to a deserted alleyway, allowing him to sling an arm around his shoulders for support. Under most circumstances, he’d just leave the idiot to limp after him, but he cannot forget the vacancy in Magnus’ eyes or shake the feeling that something is unspeakably wrong. So he supports him all the way into the indigo shadows and helps him sit down on an empty shipping crate, back against the wall.

“Alright, you big lump. Out with it. What’s going on?”

Magnus shrugs limply. “Nothing,” he mutters. He won’t meet Taako’s gaze.

“Mmhm. Sure. Okay. There’s nothing going on, except you’re piss-drunk and you just let some fool beat you up in a shitty bar. Now dish. What’s wrong with you?”

There’s something unspeakably fragile in Magnus’ expression as he leans his head back against the wall and tilts his chin towards the sky. His eyes flutter shut and his hands clench and unclench on his knees. “She died today.”

It takes Taako barely a moment to realize he means Julia.

“Oh,” says Taako. He sits down on the crate beside Magnus and clasps his hands in front of him. He doesn’t know what to say, not really. He’s lost people before, but for the most part he got them back. And his childhood was rough, yes, but the absence of people was never due to losing them.

Can’t lose people if you never had them in the first place.

But Magnus…Magnus has lost so much, and has received so little in return. And what happiness was granted to him in the lonely years on this plane was ripped from his fingers by the unforgiving hands of fate.

(Not for the first time, Taako finds himself hating Istus, just a bit, and regretting becoming her emissary. He imagines himself marching up to her and demanding compensation for all the pain they have been dealt, but he knows the days after the Hunger’s defeat have been glorious and wonderful in so many ways and he can’t bring himself to risk that. Perhaps this is their compensation.)

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” says Magnus. Then, because clearly he didn’t mean that, he says, “She was beautiful, you know? Kind and strong and fierce and gentle. She was my everything. All those years of running and I never thought I’d fall in love, but then I met her and even if I was only half of myself I knew I wanted to spend my life with her.”

Taako thinks of how quickly he’d realized he loved Kravitz and thinks maybe he understands, if even just a little. But Kravitz is still here, and Julia is not, and that is all the difference.

He could say, I’m sorry, but that would fall flat. He could say, I’m here for you, but that’s bullshit. So instead he gently bumps his knuckles into Magnus’ arm and offers one of those rare smiles of his that aren’t lies.

“You’ll see her again,” he promises. “You just have to wait.”

Magnus looks over at him with tears glistening in his eyes, still unshed, and asks in a broken-yet-hopeful voice, “How do you know?”

“I’m dating literal, actual Death. I’ll make it happen.”

Magnus huffs out a laugh that’s almost a sob and then he’s surging forward and wrapping Taako up in one of his signature bear-hugs. Any other day, Taako would complain loudly and wriggle away, but now? Magnus needs this. And Magnus is his family, and family comes before anything else. He can put up with a little bit of discomfort if it will help soothe the aching wound he knows is still weeping in Magnus’ heart.

“She’d be proud of you,” says Taako, and absentmindedly pats at Magnus’ back. He never met Julia, so all he knows about her is what little Magnus has told him, but from what he can tell he knows this is true. “Of what you’ve accomplished.”

And Magnus holds him tighter and sobs harder and Taako lets him.

Twenty minutes pass like this before Magnus finally pulls away, wiping at his eyes and breathing thickly. He sighs with the exhaustion of too many years and leans back against the wall again, but he doesn’t let go of Taako’s hand.

“Thank you, Taako,” says Magnus. He squeezes once. “I mean that. Thank you.”

Something uncomfortably warm is bubbling in Taako’s throat, so he scoffs and waves his free hand in the air and says, “Eh, no biggie,” and Magnus laughs and then he laughs and then they’re both sitting in an alleyway in a small town at midnight, cackling like a pair of particularly demented hyenas for no real reason at all except the knowledge that despite having struggled so long and suffered so much and lost so many things, they’re still alive, and they still have each other, and the rest of their family, and all the people who have come to mean so much.