#tazswap

my first taz fic and its a huge au feat. lich!taako and some tasty tazswap bc of course it is. thanks to the taz fic writers discord for chatting with me abt this and spurring me on 

“We’re gonna become liches, Taako. And that sounds— that sounds way scarier than it actually is, but… we’re, we’re going to take our living essence, our… souls… and combine it with our magical essence and… we’re gonna become something… new. Something… something powerful.

“And… we’ll still be Barry and Lup, I’ll still inhabit my body— unless I’m killed— and then things are going to get a little spooky, and, it should stick. If we do this, the next cycle, we’re still liches. The— the risk is— it’s hard to combine your soul with raw power and keep your mind right. You need something keeping your feet on the ground. An emotional anchor. And when I go all ghosty, I need to have things to remember to hold on to who I am. Today is… it’s gonna be one of those memories.

“Barry already gave me a day. And… I love him, Taako, with all of my heart, but you… I needed a day from you, because you are my heart. You know that, right?”  (The Stolen Century, Episode 65)

Taako stared at Lup for a moment, completely silent, before saying, “Yeah. I get it Lup, you’re my heart too. But if you think, even for a goddamned moment, that I’m just gonna let you and Barold become fucking liches without me, then you have another thing coming.”

He’s shaking.

Lup looked taken aback, like she didn’t anticipate this. How could she not have anticipated this? Did she not know him at fucking all? “Koko, babes,” she began, but Taako didn’t let her finish.

“Mm-mm,” he said. “Nope, Lulu. I may not be a genius like you and Barry, but I’m not an idiot either. I listen when you and Barry talk and I’ve heard what bad shit liches are. You guys aren’t doing that without me. Nope. No way.”

Lup took a deep breath and ran her hand through her thickly coiled blonde hair. “Taako, you don’t have a tether! Bear and I have been working so hard to create stronger bonds so that we won’t lose our shit when we transform and you haven’t! You can’t just become a lich!”

Taako snorted. “Babe, Taako can do anything.”

“No! You can’t!” Lup shouted, gritting her teeth.

“This time it sticks, to the inside of his lungs, to the few creases by his eyes, and it feels like he's devoured some unnamed emotion whole—like he's swallowed the sun if the sun were made of orange juice and sea glass and long sleeves in its own kind of incandescent fusion.”