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It’s the dead of night by the time they creep back onto the Starblaster, hair wild and faces flushed and eyes bright. The rest of the crew, still burdened by the necessity of sleep, has long since retired - Magnus’ snores in particular carry well down the hall - and the corridors have all been darkened in kind, forcing Lup to lead her darkvision-impaired beau by the hand back to his lodgings. Even there, they linger, just gazing at each other like a couple of idiots, until Barry finally succumbs to his human need for slumber and they say their goodnights, fingers dragging across palms in their reluctance to part.
Lup burns the sensation into the back of her mind, wanting desperately to ensure she remembers. After so many years of nothing, and so many years before that of casual flings and fair-weather lovers, it, well. Fuck. Feeling like this just feels so nice .
In her lovestruck daze, she tragically forgets that not everyone else on the Starblaster requires sleep.
When she creaks open the door to their room, Taako is sitting attentively on his bunk, facing the doorway, smirking like the cat who caught the cream.
“Shit,” she hisses before she can stop herself, hand instinctively sliding up to cover the dark hickey on her neck.
Taako’s grin grows impossibly wider.
“So.”
“Fuck off.”
“Not happenin’ this time, Lulu.” He sprawls out on his stomach as she moves to sit on her bunk, kicking his legs up behind him like a gossipy teenager at a sleepover. “C’mon, now, gimme all the deets. You know I’m gonna get ‘em one way or another, might as well just start talkin’ now and save us both some trouble.”
She fixes her brother with the mightiest glare she can muster, inhaling sharply through her nose - and then, after a moment, quietly deflating in surrender. Taako did not exert effort for many things, but juicy gossip was certainly one of them. If he wanted information, he would do anything in his power and then some to get it. (And probably recruit the rest of the crew to do so, which, frankly, was even worse than her shitty brother alone hounding her for details on her love life.)
“Fine. I took him to a bar. We tried dancing even though we both suck at it and I cracked some kind of shitty denim joke that made him laugh so hard he got beer up his nose. Then we left and just ended up like- fuckin’ walking around town and dicking around and shit and I maybe pulled him into an alley to make out a little.” A pause, during which Taako refuses to move his prying gaze from hers, before she adds with a sigh, “It was fun. I had fun. The end. You happy?”
Taako simply scoffs, rolling his eyes so forcefully that the rest of his head follows the motion. “Uhm, no, Lup, I’m not. I very specifically asked for deets, as in juicy deets, and you just gave me the boring-ass cliffs notes version that I probably could’ve just fuckin’- just pieced together from context clues here. Now c’mon and spill already.”
“Spill what, dumbass? I don’t - what, you wanna hear about the fuckin’ half-chub I gave him just with a little grinding and a dirty joke? That- is that fuckin’ juicy enough for this convo?”
“Uhm, still no. Also, gross. Please never tell me anything about Barold’s dick again, ever, for the rest of my life.” He takes a moment to roll over onto his back and sit up once more, fixing her with a look - a Look™, to be perfectly honest - that betrayed much more seriousness than he’d ever usually let on. “Listen. Lup. Lulu. I- you’re my fuckin’ sister, okay? You’re my sister and you just stayed out till ass AM on a date that made you walk in here grinnin’ ear-to-ear like a- like a fuckin’ goofus and, like - I want the deets on that , you know? Gimme all the exclusive-ass, for-your-loving-brother’s-ears-only deets up in here.”
She considers for a long, long moment. Then she sighs, slow and heavy, settles herself against the wall, and finally returns her brother’s gaze.
“Alright. Alright, I- it’s real bad, Koko,” she half-laughs, tucking a loose strand of hair behind a nervously-cocked ear. “I’ve got, like, fuckin’ super goofus brain now and I keep, like - thinking about him anytime he isn’t around and even, like most of the time he is around, like, you know? And he’ll do stupid shit like - like not quite lettin’ go of my hand because he doesn’t want to leave me yet, or get all blushy and stammer-y when I call him a nerd all flirty-like, or even just- like - fuckin’ sometimes he just looks at me and it’s like he’s never seen a goddamn elf or really a living person in a million years and he just looks like he’s so fucking glad to know me and I just fuckin’- hoo boy--”
“Holy fuck,” Taako interrupts, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, clearly riveted by every half-formed thought that exits her mouth. “Holy shit, Lup, you weren’t- you weren’t fuckin’ kidding. You’ve got this shit bad .”
“Yeah.” Her eyes flick down to her hands, nervously intertwined, and she repeats, quieter, “yeah.”
“Are you-” Taako scoots further forward, grinning again- “do you, like- do you like him?”
“Uhm, I mean, yeah. No doy.”
“No, no, fuck you, I mean- I mean do you like him, Lup.”
She blinks, long and slow, and fixes him with an absolute Look™ of her own. “What are you, five? Yes, Taako. I like-like him. Even though he’s got fuckin’ cooties and shit.”
Somehow, he’s undeterred, shuffling forward until his gangly legs are practically dangling off the edge of his bunk. “Do you love him?”
For the first time she can remember in a long, long time, Lup is speechless.
“...Lulu? Lup, did you hear-”
“I heard.” She’s silent another long moment, the quiet in the room so heavy it was practically tangible. Then, almost imperceptibly, she murmurs, “I don’t know.”
Taako looks like he’s about to topple right the fuck over with how far he’s leaning forward, mouth totally agape. “Oh holy shit. Oh, man, Lup.”
“Wh- I said I don’t know, dumbass! Why are you-”
“Oh, Lup ,” he interrupts with a snort of laughter, shaking his head in disbelief as a grin slowly cracks across his face. “Oh, Lulu, I have known you a long-ass time, and I- look, I’ve asked you this shit before and like, fuck, I’m pretty certain the answer to that question has never been anything other than ‘no’ or ‘fuck no’. Like- shit, dude, you are in way deep--”
“Oh, fuck off .” She’s turning away with a glare now, blushing fierce and deep, and she hopes to Oghma or Pan or someone that he doesn’t catch on that it’s because he’s right.
Either he does realize he’s right, or he just finds her reaction hilarious regardless, because he bursts out in hooting laughter. “Holy fuck, Lup, you’re fuckin’ screwed!” Another uproarious burst of laughter, then, through that, “fuck, fuckin’- I bet you’d marry him, wouldn’t you? C’mon, Lulu, tell- tell me the truth here, would you- would you fuckin’ marry Barold J. Bluejeans??”
She doesn’t answer, which, if she’s being honest with herself, is very much an answer in and of itself. Taako, the bastard, appears to fully realize the implications, because he immediately topples backwards with his cackling.
“Fuck you! ” She snaps, but there’s no real malice behind it, and even if there were, the burning red on her cheeks would be diminishing her intimidation factor significantly. “What, like- like your big gay ass has never gotten all gross and sappy about a dude before-!!”
Taako’s still overwhelmed with laughter, but after a moment he manages to hoist himself back to an upright position, wiping tears of joy from his eyes through yet more chuckles. “Fuckin’- not like you are right now, my dude,” he snorts, perhaps the slightest bit annoyingly smug. “Never this level of emotionally fucked over. Ch’a boy here is never getting married and them’s just facts, sis.”
Now that is enough to snap her back to a semi-composed state, one eyebrow raising. “Really. ”
“Yes, really! The fuck is that look for?”
“I- look, fuck, if that’s for real how you feel, that’s all good, dude. Not for everyone and all that shit. But, like- dude, you can be such a fuckin’ sap when you meet a sufficiently hunky fella that, like, I gotta say, you don’t seem like the never-getting-married type...?”
He snorts, rolling his eyes again. “Nah , nah, Taako ain’t a ‘commitment’ kinda dude, you feel? Like, fuck, even this Starblaster mission here is way beyond my usual level of stickin’ to a single thing. Besides, I ain’t about all that domestic bullshit. Fuck, I already friggin’ cook shit for everyone around me for a damn living, like hell I’m gonna be flittin’ around in an apron or some shit, like- fuckin’ fixing up lunches for a husband or- Pan forbid, some fuckin’ kids or whatever- like, nah, dude. Taako’s stayin’ on the road and doin’ whatever he wants and doing whoever he wants and all that domestic bullshit can fuck right off.”
She gives him a long, probing stare, silence between them for a few moments, then rolls her eyes and settles against the back of her bunk. “Alright. Whatever you say, Koko.”
“Oh, fuck that! Like you have any right to turn the tables like that, fuckin’ Mrs. Barold Bluejeans.”
“I never said I would marry Barry, smartass.”
“Uh, and you never said you wouldn’t, smartass.”
For a moment she debates glorifying that with a response, but it’s late as shit and also he’s kind of a little bit totally right. So she elects to shut the whole thing down instead. “Listen, it’s like, butts-o-clock right now. I’m gonna meditate before we have to get our asses up to cook breakfast, so you can just shut right up or I’ll waste a damn spell slot on you and you know it.”
He shrugs, in the way that she knows all too well means ‘I’ll drop it but we both know I’m right’, and settles back against his own bunk, waving his hands and mumbling an incantation that turns off the little arcanic lamp in the middle of their room. She gives him a pointed look and a nod (good ol’ Darkvision; she didn’t know how humans managed without it), then closes her eyes and focuses on her breath, gradually preparing to slip into the comfortable emptiness of a good meditation sesh.
“...Lup.” She doesn’t verbally reply, but her ear flicks up in a way that indicates she’s listening. It’s silent another moment, and for a second she worries that maybe her terse, wordless response turned him off, but then she hears him murmur, soft and kind and full of unconditional love, “I’m so happy for you, Lulu.”
She knows he can see her through the darkness, but despite that, she can’t help but crack a warm smile.
So much time has passed.
And really, if you’d spoken to Lup then, nearly a century ago, and described the whole scene she was in now - well, she probably would have laughed in your face and called you a liar and found a way to steal your shoes or some shit.
First and foremost, she’s alive. She’s alive, and she’s an elf, and she has a real living elf body that is hers, which. Well, it shouldn’t be as surprising and exciting as it is, that’s for sure. But after a handful of deaths-and-resurrections on the Starblaster, and what she’d been certain would be her final death in a shitty cave on Faerûn, and a solid decade as a semi-aware spirit inside a magic umbrella… well, after all that, being a real living person again was. A little bit of an adjustment, to say the least. A pretty desirable one, but an adjustment nonetheless.
Somehow, the rest of the situation was even more unexpected than death and resurrection and temporarily being an umbrella.
To start off, she’s in a house. Not just any house, though, because why the fuck would any random house be noteworthy. No, she’s in her brother’s house, Taako’s house, a house that he bought and owns and lives in. Taako had never, in his life, struck her as a ‘buying and living in a house’ person. Despite their rough upbringing among caravans and traveling wizards and warriors and what-have-you, Taako had always loved life on the road; loved the freedom and adventure and certain dramatic flair it had brought. Settling into a permanent home had never seemed like it was in the cards for him.
Yet here they are. Her, sitting at the counter of the little kitchen island. Taako on the other side, patiently chopping up some fruits and vegetables. A light, early morning breeze, billowing gently through the curtains on the other side of the room. It’s exactly the kind of calm, sweet, domestic scene she never could have imagined being a part of during the chaos of the past century.
There’s another point of interest in this scene, and that is Taako’s latest piercing.
They’d both long been fans of jewelry - she distinctly remembered huddling in the corner of a caravan wagon when they were only thirteen, numbing their ears with ice spells to give each other their first piercings - so Taako adding a fourth earring to his left ear wasn’t especially noteworthy. What was a little noteworthy was that Kravitz, Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome-Incarnate, who’d somehow been conned into falling for her shitty twin and had a grand total of zero piercings when they’d met, had received a matching one on his left ear around the same time. Taako had brushed it off to anyone who asked with a story about being “a li’l bit tipsy and a whole lot gay” and talking his undead lover into matching piercings as a symbol of their affections - which, frankly, was just characteristic enough of Taako that everyone pretty much accepted it. (There was, perhaps, some mild suspicion when people remembered Kravitz’s tragic inability to inebriate his magic-based corporeal form. But also, everyone was pretty sure Kravitz would hand Taako the fucking moon on a silver platter if he asked nicely enough, regardless of blood alcohol content, so no one questioned the story too much regardless.)
Lup and Barry alone knew the truth. Remembered their semi-secret, double-date trek into the town of Refuge; Barry’s frantic quest for a bouquet of flowers in the middle of the fucking desert; Lup diligently styling Taako’s hair into an elegant waterfall of curls and telling him how much she loved him, then helping to transform Kravitz’s usual locs into a curtain of braids while she reminded him how much she could fuck him up if he ever hurt her brother. (He would never hurt her brother and they both knew it. He was, quite possibly, the only person in any of the hundred planes she’d seen who could come anywhere close to loving Taako as much as she did.)
She remembered the way the two of them beamed at each other when Taako found the earrings - each made of a single red ruby from which dangled a silver charm, carved to resemble a feather. She remembered the four of them at the Temple of Istus, the two caretakers smiling down at them, Taako and Kravitz looking at each other like they were the only two people in the world.
She remembered the way Taako’s eyes lit up the first time he gazed up at Kravitz and breathed out the word husband.
Now, all this time later, in the gentle light of the sunrise, the silver charm glimmers on her brother’s ear. It makes her just swell up with joy inside, the wonderful weight that simple accessory carries - the sheer love and commitment to Kravitz, of course; but also the insistence on using something other than a ring, because Magnus would flip out if he couldn’t carve their rings himself, and he could never do that to the big lug. The decision to keep his nuptials a secret, because he simply could not wait through months of planning before finally getting his ass married to Kravitz, but also everyone would be heartbroken if he just fucked off and eloped without telling them, so screw it, he’d keep this one to himself and just do it ‘right’ later, and the second time around everyone would be there and Magnus can make rings and Merle can officiate and Angus can be ring-bearer or flower boy or whatever his little heart desired. The love and trust it illustrated to tell Lup and Barry right from the get-go, right when her brother decided to have that first secret ceremony, to have them be the only ones to bear witness and guard that secret.
Taako loved to play like he didn’t care much about other people. That one, single, simple earring, in and of itself, was a massive mountain of evidence that the entire too-cool-to-care act was fucking bullshit.
She must have been grinning more than she realized, because when she returns to the moment Taako has paused his chopping, fixing her with one of his patented Looks™ from under dark lashes. “What,” he sighs, heavy and reluctant in a way she knows means ‘I’m not sure if I want to know what you’re thinking, but it’s going to bug me all day if I don’t find out so fuck it’.
Her smirk widens. “Nooo-thiiiin’,” she croons, sing-song in a way that makes Taako's brows knit in irritation. “Just thinkin’.”
He draws a long, slow breath in through his nose, eyes closing, surely internally debating whether or not it’s worth it to press further. Apparently, he decides it’s worth it. “About what.”
“Well.” She takes her sweet time stretching out across the counter and getting comfortable, laying her chin in folded arms. “You remember when Barry and I first started going steady? Y’know, you were laughin’ your ass off, talkin’ about how sappy and gross we were…”
“Yes, because, shocker, you were sappy and gross.”
“Mhmm. But, see, here’s the thing- there was this thing you said, through all the laughing at me-” his expression doesn’t change, but his ears pin back at that, so she’s sure he knows where this is going- “And like, it was a long time ago and all, but uh, I distinctly remember you very proudly declaring you were never gonna settle down and get saddled with, I quote, ‘that domestic bullshit’.”
His ears are flat back against his head now, the feather-charm still glittering in the sunlight like it’s joining in taunting him, and there’s an obvious dusting of red across his cheeks. “Yeah, uh, and newsflash- I’m still not fuckin’ saddled by that domestic bullshit,” he counters, turning his attention back to chopping, but there’s so little conviction in his voice that it’s almost laughable.
“Are you shitting me?” She snorts, sitting herself back upright. “Koko, the specific example you used was puttin’ on a frilly apron and making lunches for your husband and kids. Which, uh, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that is literally exactly what you’re doing right now.”
“I don’t have kids.” The retort is half-hearted and mumbled, and he doesn’t even bother looking up from his work to make it.
“The fuck do you call Angus, then?”
“Not my kid.” This time he flicks his gaze up to her, but only for a moment, and the blush across his face has darkened considerably.
“Uh-huh. Not your kid. You just make him lunches every day, and take him everywhere he wants to go, and specifically got a whole fucking house right by the town he goes to school in, with an extra room that you filled with kids’ furniture and wizard toys and a whole shelf of those detective books he likes.”
“All of which is the fuckin’ burden I take on to have an apprentice worthy of my name,” he feebly excuses, grabbing a handful of strawberries to start slicing. “Believe me, only reason I do any of it is because I need his magic skills to not be an embarrassment to the Taako brand. He’s on his own as soon as I can get him to be a fuckin’ half-competent spellcaster.”
“M-hmm. I see. So you don’t care about that kid at all, then.”
“Exactly.”
“Hmm.” She lapses into silence for a long moment, watching lazily as he adds the strawberries to one of the two side-salads in front of him. “Why only one with strawberries?”
His head snaps up, eyes wide, as if she’d just asked him a much less innocuous question? “What?”
“You only put strawberries in one of ‘em,” she elaborates, tilting her head to gesture at the salads in question. “Why not just make one big salad with strawberries and just dish it out? Seems way easier.”
Taako looks less like he’s been asked about his meal-planning decisions and more like he’s been caught stealing a priceless jewel. Lup can’t help but smirk.
“...because…”
“Hmm? C’mon, Koko, tell me. I’m curious.” Truth be told, she knows exactly why one of those salads is strawberry-less, but like hell she’s going to pass up an opportunity to play dumb and force Taako to admit shit out loud.
He’s standing bolt upright in his panicked discomfort, blushing deep red and grimacing, slowly turning his gaze away as if not seeing her could make the question disappear. Then, finally, through gritted teeth, he mutters, “Because Ango’s allergic to strawberries.”
Her grin widens. Don’t care about that kid at all, her ass.
“Right, right! Silly me, I almost forgot. But then, why throw in strawberries in either of ‘em? Coulda made one big batch with none if you were so worried about him.”
Taako responds with the most intense side-eye she’s ever seen. She fuckin’ loves it.
“Because- fuck you, because apparently fuckin’ Kravitz is the actual worst and I swear to Istus I cannot get him to eat a fuckin’ vegetable unless I throw something sweet in there with ‘em. There. You fuckin’ happy, Lup? Are you- are you fuckin’ proud of yourself here?”
“Oh, extremely,” she answers without reluctance, a shit-eating grin proudly emblazoned across her face. “Now chop-chop with those lunches, Mister Domestic; I’m pretty sure you’ve only got another hour ‘til your boys are up and hounding you for food.”
Taako spends another moment leaning over the counter, fixing her with a truly mighty glare, before finally turning his attention back to his work. Under his breath, though, she hears him mutter, “Kravitz’ll only get his ass up this early if Ango makes him.”
She snorts once with laughter, and then, brother sufficiently humiliated, returns to simply quietly enjoying the early-morning breeze.
Several minutes of comfortable silence pass, and then it abruptly dawns on her that the gentle din of cooking and prep work has paused. Ears swiveling, she turns back to her twin, and finds him staring her down with a much-too-serious look.
“Oh, what. You gonna try and find a way to turn the tables on me now?”
There’s another long stretch of quiet, Taako continuing to stare at her like he’s in deep thought, and then he abruptly casts his gaze back down to the chopping board, looking- disappointed? Ashamed? “Nah. Nah, I’m not, never mind.”
...well. That hadn’t been what she expected. “Dude, I- Koko, look, uh, I’m- I didn’t mean to go too rough on you there, you know? Like, you- you can get a few hits off on me now, even things out a bit-”
“No, nah, it’s not- it’s not that.” He’s still avoiding her gaze, which she can’t help but internalize at least a little, an anxious feeling beginning to gnaw at her stomach. “I’m- I was gonna ask you something. But it was kind of super shitty, so. So I’m not.”
She blinks, long and slow. “I- jeez, a question so shitty that Taako wouldn't ask it? Must’ve been a real stinker.” She laughs hollowly, trying and failing to lighten the mood, before her plastered grin drops. “...Look, I- Koko, it’s cool, really. I’ll- I’ll tell you if you’re being too shitty and you oughta tell me the same. Deal?”
He flicks his gaze back up at her through his dark lashes, the look kinder this time, if cautious. “...all right. All right. I-” He sets a bowl of something-or-other aside, inhaling sharply. “...you don’t have to answer. If you don’t want. We can pretend this conversation never happened.”
“Sure thing.”
He nods, and the silence falls over them again for a long moment. Then he releases a heavy breath, and quietly, almost inaudible, finally says, “Why aren’t you and Barry married?”
Oh.
Oh, she thinks.
“Oh,” she says.
“Yeah,” Taako replies, averting his eyes again. Softer, he adds, “I told you it was shitty.”
“No, no, I-” and now suddenly she’s the one on the spot, sitting upright and nervously intertwining her fingers, glancing up at the ceiling as if an answer would be written there. “...I… I don’t know.”
Another heavy silence fills the air, neither twin moving nor looking at each other. “...I… it’s not because… you two are still like- okay, right? He didn’t do or say anything or-”
“No, no.” She almost laughs as she answers, because the thought of fucking Barold managing any kind of harm to her, mental or physical or emotional, is just so fucking absurd. “Shit, dude, we’ve been- we’ve been all good. I’m- you can’t imagine how happy it made me to- to just be with him again.”
She sees Taako steal a glimpse at her out of the corner of his eye - and it’s a good time to do so, because she’s blushing and smiling dumbly out of the sheer force of fucking adoration that washes over her just thinking of him. It’s blatantly obvious that she’s still deeply, deeply in love with the big nerd.
“...okay. Okay, cool.” He sounds sufficiently reassured of his sister’s relationship quality now, which seems to have calmed him considerably. “So, like… I mean, is it just… not somethin’ you’re into? Or that Barry’s into? Like, I don’t- no fuckin’ pressure or anything, y’all can do or not do anything your want, I’m just honestly curious-”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. S’all good, Koko. I...” She gazes noncommittally at a spot just past him, spending another long, uncomfortably quiet moment simply… considering. Tightening her grip on the counter ever-so-slightly when the world starts to go fuzzy at the edges, as it so often does lately.
He reaches across and grabs her hand without a word. Anchoring her back. Reminding her, subtly, of the shape, the feel, the existence of her living form.
“...Koko.”
“Yeah?”
“I… died.” The word feels off on her lips, despite the pervasiveness of death during their century of exploration. Some tiny, primal part of her brain floundering and recoiling at the thought of previously being deceased.
“...yeah.” His voice is smaller than it’s been all morning, and it does something to her heart that she doesn’t quite like. “Yeah, Lulu, you did.”
“It sucked.”
“It super sucked.”
“It did.” Her hand tenses again under Taako’s hold, and she glances down at it, taking a moment to remind herself that’s you, dumbass, that’s your hand, that’s yours now. “And I just… coming back from that? It’s just- it’s so much, dude. Like, I feel- I feel like maybe it shouldn’t be, that, like, being alive maybe shouldn’t...? Be so much harder to get used to than- than the alternative? But, fuck, dude. It is. It’s been so weird lately.”
“I mean, being a fuckin' magic vore umbrella couldn’t have helped with that.”
“It definitely didn't help,” she agrees, unable to resist laughing at the descriptor. Callous as he can be sometimes, Taako has always had a talent for lightening the mood. “But, yeah, like… right now I just- fuckin’ constantly feel like I’m learning to be a living person again? And, like, not doing a very good job of it, either. And- and Barry’s been helping me out so much, dude, like- you have too, you fuckin’ know, like, how bad it’s been. Like, how fuckin’ weird it is to have to talk me down because I, like- when I just forget I’m not a stupid umbrella anymore and lose my fucking mind outta nowhere. He’s- he’s somehow stuck with me through all of that.”
Taako nods, slowly, more thoughtfully than is usually characteristic of him. “Barry’s a good guy,” he murmurs.
“Yeah. Yeah, he is.” She bites her lip, struggling to find the right words for her current complicated emotions. “And, I mean- I guess what I’m trying to get at is, I… I forgot… I forgot how the fuck to be Lup, dude. It sounds… I mean, it sounds fuckin’ weird as hell, saying it out loud, let’s be real. But I- it’s been so long since I… since I was Lup, that I- that I kinda have to learn all over again who… who that is? What… what Lup is like? What Lup says, and does, and wants, and like…” She trails off, and Taako reaches out to grab her other hand, waiting patiently while she slowly inhales and collects herself. You’re here, you’re here, it’s over, it’s all real now. “I don’t… I legitimately don’t know if I want to get married or not right now. I mean, fuck, right now I’m having trouble figuring out whether or not I want things a lot less important than a fucking wedding. I just… want to wait until I know for sure. You know?”
“I know,” he replies, soft and sincere, without hesitation, a look in his eyes that she can’t entirely place. “I mean- honestly, dude, it was the same with me. I didn’t- listen, way back in the day when I told you I was never getting married? That was no bullshit, I- I straight up had zero interest in settling down. It just did not appeal to me. But then, you know- then I met Kravitz and--”
“Hit new and exciting levels of gaaay.”
“Fuck you.” There’s a hint of a smirk on his face, though, and no malice whatsoever in his tone. “No, I just- you know, we were dating for a long-ass while and went through a whole metric fuck-ton of bullshit together, what with the world almost endin’ and all, and then…” And his face softens, gaze averting from hers, expression all thoughtfulness and warmth and loving . “I guess… one day it just, like… occurred to me? That I could ask Kravitz to marry me if I wanted? And, uh… yeah. Just like that it was all I could think about. Suddenly being married to him was everything I ever wanted.”
There’s a moment of silence, the smallest and warmest of smiles on her brother’s face, before he turns back to look her in the eyes. “But, like, listen… if I… if that hadn’t happened? If my gay ass hadn’t suddenly done a total 180 on the concept of marriage? I’d still be in fucking love with the guy. So it’s like… if you never have that moment? If getting married never feels like something you absolutely have to do because you want it so bad? Then fuck it. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you and Barry love each other, and like- clearly, you do. Bunch of sappy-ass fuckers.”
“That is kind of our thing.” She smirks, a lightness in her chest, a self-assuredness that she’d missed feeling. “Good ‘ol Lup ‘n Barold, sappy as fuuuck.”
“Yup. Straight-up disgustingly in love and we just gotta fuckin’ put up with it, I guess.”
“Hell yeah you do.”
The quiet returns anew, now gentle and comfortable again, and she lets the stillness and warmth of the early morning seep into her bones. “...Lup,” Taako softly interrupts after a long moment, and when she turns back to him there is so much affection in his eyes that it’s blinding. He squeezes her hands and smiles, and murmurs, soft and kind and full of unconditional love, “I’m so happy for you, Lulu.”
Her heart feels like it’s going to burst, and she feels tears threaten to spill over in turn. “Yeah. Me, too,” she whispers back, voice on the verge of breaking. “I’m so happy for you too, Koko.”
They beam at each other, and he releases her hands so he can lean across the counter, cradling her head and pressing a kiss to her forehead. She lets out an ugly snort of laughter, reaching up to grab his hands once more, and for a perfect, endless moment they just look into each other’s eyes, twin gaze communicating what words never could. Then, after too long and not long enough, they let each other go, Taako returning to his prep work, Lup settling against the counter and basking in the light of the rising sun.
Very soon, Taako’s family (her family) will wake up and pester him for breakfast. Angus will rush over to greet his Auntie Lup and scramble into her lap and let her pepper him with kisses. Kravitz will stagger in half-asleep, and Taako will hand him his coffee, and Kravitz will smile and gaze at his husband like he’s the sun and moon and stars all rolled up into one. Lup will go fish her stone of farspeech from her bag and give Barry a wake-up call and urge him to join them, and he’ll stumble in with stammered apologies for being late, and Lup will laugh and fix his bedhead and kiss him even as Taako makes gagging noises and playfully covers Angus’ eyes.
They will eat breakfast together. And they will laugh, and smile, and hug, and kiss, and love each other more than most people would ever be able to comprehend. The very thought makes her smile, the warmth of that love seeming to settle in and make a home deep in her chest.
She has missed being Lup.