#my close and personal friend lup...sniffle..

Lup is incredibly impatient to get her body back. She rambles to Barry over their post-Hunger-battle celebratory dinner about how they could alter Taako’s DNA. But her boyfriend interrupts her, red-faced and mumbling something Taako can’t hear. He hears his sister’s reply, though.

“Babe, that is so creepy. I love you so much.”

Taako kicks her boot from across the table. “What?”

Her white-toothed grin glows from within the black, wispy shape of her face. “Barry saved a lock of my hair like an absolute weirdo.” Barry flushes with embarrassment as everyone turns to listen. “But you know what that means – mama’s gettin’ her body back!”

Magnus cheers from beside Taako, raising his glass of mead in a single-person toast. “How long will it take to grow?” the wizard asks.

Barry takes off his glasses and cleans them, something he does about ten times a day. “I’d say about a couple weeks.”

“Fuck yes!” the twins say in unison.

Magnus, being the rustically hospitable man that he is, allows them to use his basement as a science lab. He’s the only one besides Merle who has a house. Lucretia still lives on the moon; Davenport is traveling; and Taako has a small apartment in New Phandalin. Lup and Barry have a place in the Astral Plane, but they had a feeling Kravitz would lose his mind if they start growing a body in his neighbourhood. It’s already stressful enough for him to look the other way when they do necromancy shit here.

Lup and Barry need to be there to monitor the experiment but there’s no real reason for everyone else to stay. However, Magnus’s table is full of friends while Lup’s body grows in his basement. The kids are with Hecuba, so Merle invites himself over. Taako can’t bring himself to leave. Days turn into weeks; a few sleepovers turn into a strange vacation.

Kravitz visits often, gently convincing Taako to go out for a walk or an activity with him, but never pressuring him to go home to his apartment. He kisses the wizard goodnight on Magnus’s porch. “Keep me up to date on that thing I don’t know about,” he says, then disappears into the darkness with moonlight shining off of his skull.

“Bet your boyfriend has a bone to pick with me,” Lup winks when her brother enters the kitchen.

“Nah,” Taako replies, “he’s chill.” He grabs Magnus’s apron off of the hook next to the door. It’s warm yellow with strawberries embroidered on it. “I’m thinking dumplings tonight, what about you?”

Cooking together was what they always did. When things got tough, they lost themselves in a recipe and the warmth of each other’s company and forgot about the world. “Sure,” Lup replies. But things are different now. She can’t taste any of the food. Her hands are cold when he passes her a dish. Instead of filling the room with a comfortable fire, her physical presence is dark and damp. And Taako has trouble ignoring that, although he wouldn’t trade this time for anything.

Lup teases him about the garlic. They used to double the amount in any recipe that called for it. In retrospect, Taako thinks maybe a hidden part of his mind created thirty garlic clove chicken because of this. But he uses barely any now. The smell of it brings him back to the sound of choking, the sight of dropping bodies, and panic flooding his veins.

He tells her this. She knew about Glamour Springs, of course, but she didn’t know about the recipe. “Shit, Taako, I’m sorry, babe.” She hugs him and he appreciates the gesture, but she’s cold and weird and not quite solid. He pulls away.

“Taako’s good, don’t you worry, sis.”

They cook, the boys eat, and days pass sluggishly. It’s kind of nice being together like this, and everyone knows that Magnus loves a house with a crowded table. Taako teaches him how to make churros. Merle teaches Barry how to garden. And Lup watches, wringing her shadowy hands together and wishing she could fully join them. Sometimes Taako hears a noise from the basement, but it’s only Lup – pressing her hands to the tube and shouting at her body to “hurry the fuck up!”

Barry goes down to the lab every morning. One rainy day, about two and a half weeks from the initial implantation, he comes up the stairs with an excited expression on his round face. “I’ve got some news –”

He doesn’t get the chance to finish because Lup is already sprinting past him. They hear the sound of shattering glass. “It has a latch...” Barry mumbles, his head in his hands. They would have to go to the black markets to find another tube, now.

Taako watches Barry closely, looking for any sign of stress. Besides the general air of exasperation he always has, he seems relatively calm. Taako tries to take some deep breaths in the silence. This feels exactly like when he was standing on the deck of the Starblaster, watching Lup and Barry rise up from their bodies in their lich forms for the first time. Anxiety squeezes his heart with an icy hand.

The footsteps on the stairs sound much more solid coming up than they had been running down. The door is kicked open and there’s Lup in her corporeal form. She’s dressed in the clothing Taako had bought for her – a black crop top with a pair of skeleton hands over the breasts and a pair of leggings covered in rhinestones. She’s smiling wider than she has in weeks. Taako thinks about Lup in her lich form, how he could recognize his sister in the shape of her ears and the way that she moved. But looking at her now – the softness of her shoulder-length hair; her dark, freckled cheeks; the angle of her nose – he’s overwhelmed.

Taako isn’t even aware that he’s crying until he realizes he can’t see. Lup crashes into him like a tidal wave on the beach planet. She holds him close and he presses his face into her shoulder. She smells a bit like Barry’s lab, but also achingly familiar and so very real. She no longer feels cold and misty; she’s warm and strong and alive. There’s something about it that slots everything into place for Taako and suddenly he’s consolidating everything in a way he hasn’t been able to before. He grips the back of her shirt tightly and cries for the ten years she was trapped and alone, for the years he lived wandering and scared, searching for something that felt like home.

When he pulls back, Lup is sniffling too. Taako wipes her tears away and then just holds her face in his hands, squishing her a little like he used to when they were young and she needed cheering up. They’re exactly the same height now that she’s not floating a foot off the ground anymore. She laughs. Her eyes are shining.

“I missed you, Lulu,” Taako says.

“I never left you.”

“I know.”

The others can’t seem to hold back anymore, and they join the twins, invading the bubble of space they had given them. Taako feels Merle hug him at the hip and he feels Magnus’s big hand on his back. Barry presses his face into Lup’s hair. He’s also crying. Lup gives him a big, wet kiss. “Gross,” Taako protests half-heartedly.

Of course, Magnus is crying too. Even Merle wipes his eyes when he thinks no one is looking. It’s squishy and messy and way more emotional than Taako would usually be comfortable with. But he just looks into his sister’s eyes (a honey brown, no longer glowing red) and lets himself feel safe and warm.

They clean up a bit and sit down in the living room with a fresh pot of coffee. Merle makes a group call on his Stone of Farspeech to the entire I.P.R.E. crew. His voice echoes from the foyer where everyone else hung up their coats. Taako takes his Stone out of his pocket and calls Kravitz.

Lucretia takes a canon down from the moon base immediately, and everyone is delighted and surprised to see Davenport with her as well. He had just returned from a trip and had been visiting Lucretia when they got the call.

Kravitz arrives soon after. He’s initially very concerned at the sight of everyone’s tear-stained faces, but then he notices Lup’s corporeal form and his face softens into happiness. “You look wonderful,” he tells her.

She shoots finger guns at him. "You're just saying that 'cause I'm his twin." He laughs easily, as he always does.

Taako leaves to make a new pot of coffee and his boyfriend follows him into the kitchen, enveloping him in a cold but comforting hug. Taako presses his face into Kravitz’s neck and tentatively acknowledges that this is the happiest he’s ever been.

A rainy Thursday morning turns into a celebration full of tears, hugs, and reminiscing. Taako and Lup cook supper together and she takes charge this time, very excited to be able to eat again. They make arroz con pollo, their aunt’s recipe, and this time the smell of garlic and chicken summons fond childhood memories alone.

They’re back – Taako and Lup, Lup and Taako.

The tiny baby turned closer to his chest, enjoying the silk of his nightshirt, a tiny starfish hand fastening in the front as she let out a high, whimpering sigh. As adorable as it was, it only made Taako groan under his breath, ears drooping a little. He meandered over to the window, perching himself on the cushioned seat so the little girl could look out over the fields if she wanted to. Just letting her see the world, reminding her where she was. Sometimes Taako needed that, after he’d let the memories at the corners of his mind have too much freedom; he needed something to hold on to that confirmed the here and now.

“Had a nightmare, huh, pumpkin?” he whispered, thumb gently running over her pale, almost ice white skin, “No sweat, I’m no stranger to those…they can’t hurt you, not really…”

He stroked the dark blue curls that crowned the top of her head next, they were almost impossibly silky. She seemed to like that a lot, her eyelids suddenly growing heavy and her lips parting so he could see the tip of her tongue poke out. That drew a fond chuckle from the elf.

“Atta girl, I’ve got ya,” he nodded, leaning back against the window and crossing one stick thin leg over the other and bending to kiss her forehead, “If any of those rotten nightmares come back, you just come running to Taako, kay? Well, maybe not running, you can’t even lift your own head up yet. Best wait a while before you give it a go. Believe me, milk that ‘I’m a baby’ excuse for all it’s worth. Pretty soon people are gonna try and get you to, like, do sh…stuff…”

“Good save,” a smooth, low voice without a hint of tiredness spoke up from the doorway.

Taako’s ears shot up instantly, head jerking to see Kravitz smiling coyly, somehow still looking unfairly handsome despite the fact that he’d just gotten back from an incredibly late call out at work. It wasn’t just the slick, dark suit, plush red tie, the gold bands keeping his braids back from his face though that was a pretty significant part of it. It was that smile, crooked and playful, his eyes bright and looking at Taako with so much love that it was pretty disarming.

“I, ah, I just don’t have the change for the swear jar,” he insisted, smiling back despite himself and the blush creeping up his narrow face, “Do I have to make you wear a bell, baby, you scared the hell out of me?”

“Sorry, it just looked too perfect to interrupt,” Kravitz shrugged apologetically, coming in, “May I sit?”

“Sure,” Taako nodded, leaning in and kissing him as soon as he sank down on the cushions next to him. He let it go on a few moments longer than strictly necessary, it hadn’t been fun waking up without his husband’s arm around him and he was ridiculously glad to see him home.

“Easy,” Kravitz giggled when they drew back for air, “Not in front of the baby…”

“She’s asleep, no harm no foul,” Taako snorted and it was true, the little half elf had long since nodded off, still clinging to the front of Taako’s shirt.

Kravitz smiled warmly, putting his arm around his husband, “She really does seem to love you.”

Taako felt his blush get a little deeper and his typical fidgeting start up, “Nah, she must just like hearing Elvish…”

The reaper rolled his red eyes but didn’t argue, kissing Taako’s cheek instead and letting him rest his head on his shoulder, fingers threading through his long hair in a way that made him melt and purr.

“I was thinking, actually…” he murmured after a while, “The little lady doesn’t have a name yet…”

Taako bit his lip, stiffening just a little under his touch, “I…I didn’t think we were going to give her one. I mean, it’s not like she’s…ours.”

Kravitz paused, looking down. He’d been afraid of this subject coming up between the two of them, more and more as they’d hung on to their new charge.

“You don’t want her to be ours…?”

There was a long silence, one where the night’s darkness seemed to press in, almost suffocating, around them. But when Taako eventually spoke, his voice was suddenly thick with tears.

“I do. I don’t want to but I do…”

“My darling,” Kravitz sighed softly, pulling back so he could wrap his arms fully around his husband, hating knowing that something he’d said had upset him so much, scrambling for apologies, “It’s okay…”

“It’s not,” Taako choked out, voice muffled as he pressed his face to Kravitz’s chest, as if that would stop the flow of words he’d been keeping hidden inside him for two weeks, “It’s selfish. I-I know she’d be way better off somewhere else, I’d be the worst parent every for her but…but I don’t want to give her away…I want her to stay here…I want to wreck her life, what the fuck does that say about me?”

Kravitz’s eyes widened in shock, “Taako, no. My dearest, how could you…you’d be a wonderful father. That’s exactly why I brought her here after I found her!”

Taako sniffled, tears rolling thickly down his freckled cheeks, “You…dude, you know more than anyone what a fucking mess I am…”

“That’s two in the swear jar, darling,” Kravitz tried a smile, reaching forward and stemming the flow of tears with a handkerchief swept from the inside of his jacket. When he only got a twisted mouth in response, he sighed gently, “All I know is what a kind, brave, determined person you are. How much you’ve been through and coped with. And how you’d be the perfect father for a poor little girl who’d been through the same…”

Taako sniffed, blinking rapidly, trying to stop the tears, “You…that’s…that’s so gay, babe…”

Kravitz laughed softly, face breaking into a warm grin, “I know right?”

Taako giggled helplessly too, resting his forehead on Kravitz’s until the tightness in his chest let go and he felt more like himself again.

“So…she could be ours…” Taako murmured, feeling the unfamiliar but welcome taste of hope in the back of his mouth, “We could…we could have a daughter.”

Kravitz rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking uncharacteristically shy, “Would now be a good time to mention that I’ve had about five different families I could have asked to take her in my address book this entire time but I didn’t want to say?”

Taako blinked before gasping incredulously, holding the baby tighter so he could shove his husband’s shoulder gently, “You sneak! You got me to cry!”

“I didn’t get you to do anything…” Kravitz shook his head, chuckling, “Are you mad at me?”

“No, course not, babe,” Taako shoved him again just for good measure, “Kind glad you didn’t actually, my existential crisis would have been, like, a factor of ten worse.”

Kravitz looked a little relieved, holding out his arms for the sleeping baby, gently carrying her back over to her peach crate crib, “And now she’s ours, how about that name?”

Taako hummed thoughtfully, tongue poking out in concentration as he padded over, wrapping his arms around Kravitz and resting his head between his shoulder blades, “Could we maybe name her after someone?”

“I think that would a wonderful idea,” Kravitz smiled, “After who?”

The answer came to Taako easily, there was one person more than anyone else that he wanted this little girl, currently soundly asleep in amongst the nest of the softest blankets that could be found at short notice, to grow up like.

“Lucretia,” he murmured, “Maybe something like Luka for short, so we don’t confuse a weeks old baby with a seventy year old human woman…”

Kravitz turned smoothly, cradling his husband’s face in his cool hands, the smile on his face bright and loving just as it had been when he’d first walked in, “I can’t imagine a better name for our daughter.”

Daughter…that word scared Taako. But he thought, as he closed the gap between Kravitz’s lips and his own, it was the best thing he’d ever been scared about in his life.