#imagine if he'd actually got lup

[barry-j-blupjeans]

@taznovembercelebration - Savor

Things Lucretia expected from the Candlenights party: Goofs. Miscellaneous hijinks. Loud noises caused purely by her entire organization being stuffed in a dorm that only fit three people. Gifts. Heartfelt songs. Maybe, possibly, a small fire, because she knew her employees very well, and as much as she played the cool, indifferent boss, she still had to follow the fire code.

Things Lucretia got from the Candlenights party instead: Stress, times a thousand. The news of both Lucas's and Maureen's deaths. A goddamn brilliant macaroon. Having to watch Magnus get turned into a human-stone monster and shit out- she was using that word because she didn't know what else to use here- a relic of mass destruction. Emotional trauma from witnessing that.

The last person finally left her office after the Philosopher's Stone had been "destroyed" and Lucretia sat slumped over her desk, a headache coming on strong. She had drunk a fuck load of coffee when the boys had been out in the Miller Lab and she had regretted it in the hours since. It had only seemed to double the chaos and the noise, but it had felt like a good decision at the time. Now, as her body began to power off for the night, she was struggling to keep track of what she had to do next.

So. Lucas was dead. Probably. She felt like they wouldn't have lied about that but, frankly, she didn't know anymore. Tonight had been… a lot. What she wanted to do was go to bed, curl up, and just kind of like, vibe there for a couple of days. Surely, her secret moon organization could run without a leader for a hot second. Maybe Brad could step up? Brad seemed like he'd do good with that sort of thing. Logically, she knew that wouldn't be an option, but it didn't stop her from imagining not having to leave her room until she knew what the hell she was doing again.

The whole situation here had thrown her completely off her already unsteady rocker. The news about Maureen hit harder than she wanted it to, or ever expected it to. They weren't exactly close when she, supposedly, died, but it stung nonetheless. Maureen had been the first person Lucretia felt like she could trust outside of Davenport after the Redaction. And now both she and her only son were gone because of the stupid, stupid relics.

And then, of course, Death. Actual, literal Death, and not just the concept. The boys were going to be turning in mission reports by Monday, but from what she had gathered, it hadn't been a pretty encounter. The concept of Death as a person wasn't new, at least, not to Lucretia, but she didn't know why it hadn't crossed her mind here. The whole situation left an uneasy feeling in her stomach. If Death could fight back, and fight back hard, according to what she had heard, and the brief bits the boys had recounted, then what was stopping him from simply getting her? And Barry, what was stopping him from getting Barry? Did they all have targets on their back, or was it simply a coincidence that they had run into him tonight? If he was attracted to necromancy then Barry- then Lup-

"Nope," Lucretia said, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands. "Not going there."

Okay. Okay. Recenter. Refocus. What next, what next?

Barry. Barry was the next logical, not completely emotionally heartbreaking train of thought.

Lucretia… didn't know what to do about the Barry situation. She had never really seen her and Barry on opposite sides of this… situation. Barry had never been openly hostile toward her for it. But they had never truly talked about it, either. The closest they had got was a few days after the Redaction, where Barry had tracked her down again. That one hadn't been a particularly great conversation. And then, of course, his visit after Wonderland. She knew he was around doing- doing something. Trying to find Lup, trying to figure out her side of things, whatever, but he was out there.

It had once brought her comfort that there was someone else who truly knew about the Redaction. Now, she was just thinking about how easily her narrative could be twisted back on her if the boys chose to listen. And as much as she told them to stay away, she knew they wouldn't. After all, though the memories they had made together were now erased, the bonds were still very much there. They just didn't have names. Barry's lich form was terrifying and breathtaking all at the same time, but leave it up to Taako, Merle, and Magnus to treat him as if he didn't look like a Faerûn's newest cryptid. And if they listened to Barry for even a second more, if they dived a bit deeper in, what was stopping her plan from falling apart at the seams?

Lucretia stood, bones aching. Tomorrow, she would review the notes about the Redaction for the thousandth time since bringing the boys up to the moon. She'd comb through her notes and figure out what best to say to make her words hit the hardest. She was nothing if not a storyteller, after all. Maybe a younger Lucretia would have wanted to savor the scene a little bit longer, to leave the words dripping down her throat, honey-warm and soothing. It'd make for a great book, at the very least.

But she wasn't that Lucretia anymore. And, personally speaking, their story had been dragged out long enough.

[desiree-harding-fic]

The Phantom of the Opera but Taakitz

In which Kravitz fails pretty spectacularly at Phantoming but he’s trying very hard. Taako fails at “damsel-in-distress”-ing but to be fair he’s not really trying.

My parents were watching Phantom and my brain went taakitz because you know... spooky one and pretty one. But then I had to make it fit, and idk y’all. It’s pure silliness. Lmk if you want a kissin’ part bc if you do I have like 1/3 of that written. Thanks to @fandomsnstuff​ for encouraging me in every way to post XD

@herbgerblin >:333

*~*~*~*~*

Taako woke up not knowing where he was.

Which was, to begin with, just a massive red flag.

His head hurt. He felt heavy. And where the fuck was he? All he could see was grimy stone brick, and on them, softly flickering candlelight - and the sound of - was that water? He was having a hard time breathing - Lup’s fucking corset, he swore this was the last time she convinced him to take place in some fucking hairbrained scheme -

He shoved himself up to sitting and was immediately assaulted by a voice - 

“LUP TAACO, I HAVE BROUGHT YOU HERE TO -”

“What the fuck?!” Taako shouted, leaping to his feet, and then the fucking skirts got tangled and then the floor underneath him tipped -

And taako was wet. He was in water, in all these fucking skirts and he was wet and Lup was going to pay for this. 

He pushed himself up again, sputtering, and thank god it wasn’t very deep, he didn’t know what he’d do if was forced to swim in this ridiculous outfit - 

The voice came again.

“MISS TAACO, YOU HAVE BEEN SUMMONED TO THIS SANCTUARY OF MUSIC TO-”

“I’M NOT LUP!!” Taako shouted desperately, just to get it to shut up, the voice that was splitting his fucking head in two, and trying to arrange the soaking wet gown into some semblance of order, and he didn’t know where he was, and he woke up here, which was just - there was something immensely wrong with that because Taako didn’t remember going to sleep.

“TO- I’m sorry?”

“I’m not Lup!!” Taako shouted again, throwing his hands up in frustration, and giving up on the stupid dress, and looking toward the direction of the candlelight, and the whoever was standing there screaming at him, and - huh.

A man, half his face obscured by a mask meant to look like a skeleton, in a suit that looked more at home at the opera (where Taako was a moment ago - or it seemed a moment) than - was this a fucking sewer? - and a full on-cloak atop that, and a fucking ridiculous hat-

As Taako’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see more of the man’s face, which was, even with the one eye obscured, contorted into an expression of confusion.

He may have registered, distantly, that he also looked rather handsome, but fuck that honestly, because Lup’s corset was cutting into his side and he was wet and - and his brain wasn’t working. He was in the opera house, and then Lup - Lup had begged him to switch clothes because please< Taako, I can’t get Grimaldis to quit following me, please, just to throw him off - and then he was going out the stage door, but he didn’t get there… he didn’t get there because-

“Did you fucking kidnap me?!” he shouted.

“I - I didn’t - you’re not Lup Taaco?”

“No!! Fucking - look at me!” he gestured to the ruined dress, the way it hung, now clearly fitting ill - “Do I look like Lup to you?!”

“Yes! Well, no, I mean, but you - but you- you’re wearing her clothes!” The man sputtered.

“And?!” Taako shouted, “you don’t fucking know me, kemosabe! I can wear whatever the hell I like!” The man, whoever he was, was standing on some kind of shore, and Taako, sick of standing in waist-deep water, started hauling up his skirts and wading toward it. “And that’s another thing! Who are you to fucking - get off kidnapping my sister?!”

“I - No!” Tuxedo Man said, stumbling back further from the shore as Taako advanced, “it’s not like that, I - I can see where you’d think, but I - I didn’t want to -”

“Didn’t want to what?!” Taako continued, finally stepping out of the water, the heavy gown dripping on the stone, so much heavier soaked like this. Taako couldn’t take it anymore. If he had to fight this motherfucker over his sister’s honor or whatever, he wasn’t going to do it in a goddamn evening gown. He started tearing at the clasps at back of it, the ties, anything to get the fucking thing off of him.

“You mistake me for my fucking sister,” he fumed, “which firstly, you’re stalking my sister, apparently, so you’re gonna fucking die - and then you -what? Fucking chloroform me and drag me to some kind of sewer sex-dungeon god knows where, what am I supposed to think?!” The outer-most layer of the gown finally came off, and Taako flung it into the water behind him because honestly fuck this.

“No!” the masked man said, shaking his head furiously, “I didn’t - I didn’t mean anything untoward!”

“I think kidnapping is pretty untoward-”

“I wasn’t going to do anything to - I don’t - it’s not a sex dungeon!” he cried, “I don’t even like her!”

“OH?!” Taako said, and god, he wished he could get the corset off, because he was really running out of breath with all the shouting - “what’s your name, thug, because I’m about to-”

“Kravitz, but - Wait! No! I - I - please don’t, I didn’t mean any harm, I was - I was just trying to give her a violin lesson!”

“Give my sister a violin lesson?” Taako growled, “She’s the goddamn concert master of the Paris Opera I think she knows how to play the violin pretty fucking well-”

“It’s just the solo in the third scene of act five!” Kravitz pleaded, actually pleaded, and Taako supposed that was a point in his favor somehow, but still, “She - she keeps - the phrasing is all wrong, and it’s the climax of the piece, and I couldn’t stand it-”

“So you were going to kidnap her?” Taako said, completely dumb with disbelief because who did this motherfucker think he was - “Who are you to give notes on her fucking performance, huh?”

“I’m the composer!” Kravitz said, throwing up his hands.

That stopped Taako in his tracks, because what? Of all the off the wall lies to get him off the hook, that’s what spooky Kravitz went with? The composer of the opera taking Paris by storm. The opera that just had its run extended another two months. And sure, sure he might as well fight the skull-mask man in the fucking - sewers, he guessed, while wearing his sister’s evening wear, the composer of her fucking opera, who wanted to kidnap her for a violin lesson in the sewer because sure! Taako’s life was already so goddamn weird, he figured this might as well happen too, why the hell not?

Maybe he didn’t wake up at all. Maybe this was all one horrible, drawn-out nightmare. Maybe he’d been hit over the head and this was his brain’s last fanciful imagining before he went out.

He buried his face in his hands, tried to breathe deeply. And then couldn’t. Because of the corset.

Ok, he thought, if this is a dream, it has to end now, because I figured it out. I’m dreaming. Time to wake up.

He counted to five and then peeked out from between his fingers. Spooky skele-man Kravitz was still looking at him. In the moment, without all the screaming, Taako managed to just get a better look at him. He was leaning back against something that looked like a manual for an organ. Weird, but then again, no weirder than the whole. Sewer-dwelling skeleton thing.

There were a few things Taako could do. He could fight the skeleton composer man, who, the more Taako looked, didn’t cut nearly as imposing of a figure as he did a moment ago. Or he could play things out.

The thing was, Taako wasn’t particularly a fighter. And Kravitz the skele-man had kidnapped him once that evening. And getting flustered when Taako shouted at him didn’t mean that he wasn’t capable of taking Taako if he made good on his threats.

And Taako was tired.

Taako sighed, removed his hands from his face. Pinched the bridge of his nose. He was so tired. His head felt like someone had reached down into it and was pulling it slowly apart from each side.

“Uhm,” Kravitz said, “are you alright?”

“No,” Taako groused, and then sighed. He removed his hand. “I would love to kick your ass, darling, because no one stalks my sister and lives, but first,” he gestured to the whole… rest of his get-up. “Would you mind lending a guy a hand in getting this off? It’s fucking cold and ‘chaboy’s gettin’ real tired of not being able to take a complete breath.”

“I’m sorry?” Kravitz squeaked. His voice sounded about two octaves higher than before. His eyes, just for a moment, flickered over Taako’s body, panicked, and - well. That was interesting, wasn’t it.

“The clothes, Kravitz,” Taako said, purposely evoking his name. “Please? I’m wet as all hell and fucking freezing, and if I’m gonna throw you in this water and drown you or something I’d like to at least have a decent range of mobility so if you wouldn’t mind-”

“Um,” Kravitz said, “Please don’t drown me?”

“Gimme that cloak to wear and we’ll see,” Taako said back. Fuck, his head hurt. He was too tired for this.

“I can - I can actually do you one better, if you need me to. I have um…. men’s clothing around the corner if you’d prefer-”

“Fucking fantastic, skeletor, just get a move on.”

“Oh. Alright then, um. Follow me?”

And Taako did. Kravitz pushed himself off the organ and moved to his left, and sure enough, there was something like a corner, and a sort of tunnel, lower-ceilinged, and in it was - well, practically an entire apartment’s worth of furniture, all arranged just-so, with candles perched all about on tables and sconces on the walls. The place was drafty but all the same, it looked quite like Kravitz had made it into a perverted imitation of a home.

Beside the frankly absurd number of candles, and the lakeside organ, there was a series of screens, separating out the space where walls did not. Rugs, slightly tattered and faded. Old brocade armchairs that didn’t match. A desk, ink and pen sitting atop it with scattered papers, and, in the last “chamber” of the long, successive home, a bed and chests in something that looked quite almost like a bedroom.

Kravitz turned around and regarded Taako with a fair measure of confusion as though unsure exaclty what to do next, but after a moment, he fumbled with his gloved hands around his neckline, until he was able to untie the cloak from around his shoulders. He thrust it toward Taako, quite sheepish-looking now behind his half-mask. 

“Here,” he said. “You can um… use it to cover up, while I - find you some clothes.”

“Corset first, bones,” Taako said, only just in a small part to watch him squirm. Sex-dungeon indeed. Taako was feeling out the boundaries of the conversation and Kravitz was bashful, of all things. Probably not kidnapping Lup for - well. Probably not that then. Maybe the violin lesson wasn’t an excuse after all.

Taako was beginning to think Kravitz was… well. For lack of a better term, somewhat pathetic. Maybe just insane.

Still, he’d do. All Taako needed was an extra pair of hands. He turned around, back to Kravitz and facing one of the screens. “Help me outta this. I’m not used to the lacing and I need some more eyes. Might have to take the gloves off though. Dexterity, and all that.” That he did say to be mean.

“Oh. Um, yes of course,” Kravitz said, and Taako felt as much as heard him walk up to his back, closer than he’d yet been. Taako felt his hands pulling at the lacing of the corset, felt something come undone, and the constriction lesson by degrees. He pulled in a deep breath. It was heavenly.

For a moment, something frigid brushed against Taako’s back, and he jumped. “Christ!” Kravitz withdrew; Taako could feel that sixth sense of proximity dissipate.

“Sorry,” Kravitz said. “Poor circulation.” His voice was so much softer than before. Something in Taako’s chest twisted at the sound of it. “You should… you should be able to remove the rest of it, now. I can- I’ll get you some clothes. Oh, um.” There was a moment of hesitation from behind him, then he felt the weight of something thick and soft drape over his shoulders, felt Kravitz withdraw again. The cloak. He’d draped it over Taako’s shoulders. It was surprisingly soft. Heavy, too. Warm. Probably did him some good down here.

“There, you can - I’ll get you something to change into.”

Taako felt strangely hot. He busied himself pulling the rest of Lup’s clothes off of him, shivering as they hit the floor with wet slaps. Good god, it really was cold in Kravitz’s - dungeon… or whatever. Even with the many candle flames all around. Removing the corset was a blessing, though. Taako drew in several deep luxurious breaths, pausing in his undressing to stretch. He could hear Kravitz rummaging around in the trunks and chests behind him.

And the rummaging stopped.

“I’m just going to uh… leave these on the bed?” Kravitz’s voice came, “I’ll. I’ll leave you to it,” and he slipped out between a couple of screens, and Taako was alone in his… in his bedroom. In the bedroom of a mysterious masked man who somehow knocked Taako out, dragged him to god only knew where, shouted at him for being Lup and then seemed, inexplicably, very apologetic the moment Taako called him on it.

He supposed stranger things had happened to him in his life. 

Then he thought again, and no, they hadn’t.

It was almost disconcertingly silent on the other side of the screen. Taako wrapped the cloak around himself properly, stepping out of the last of Lup’s clothes, and left them in a heap on the floor as he turned around and moved to the bed. He dressed quickly (Kravitz’s clothes weren’t a perfect fit but they worked well enough), draped the cloak around his shoulders to keep out the persistent chill in the air, and stepped out from the screen. Kravitz was standing in the middle of what looked like his sitting room, as though he was waiting for Taako.

Taako crossed his arms. 

Kravitz began to speak. 

“Mister Taaco,” he said, “you have come to know too much of my domain. I cannot allow-”

“So,” Taako interrupted him, “Are we gonna throw down or what? I promised you an ass-kicking on account of defending my sister’s honor and all.”

Kravitz paused, and Taako could practically feel the frustration coming off of him. “I shall not be taking orders -”

“What happened to your voice?” Taako asked, cutting him off again, because god, what was he doing? “Is that a Cockney accent? What are you going for here?”

“This is how I speak-”

“My dude, we literally had a conversation without you going all Charles Dickens on me like not five minutes ago-”

“Could you let me finish?!” Kravitz finally snapped, accentless once more. “For once?! Please?!”, and Taako just waited, and watched as Kravitz realized what he’d done, as his whole schtick disintegrated before his eyes. “Oh goddamnit all,” he said, throwing up his hands in defeat.

Taako couldn’t help but smile. 

“Really nailing it on the whole spooky sinister vibe, my fella,” he said. “Really knocking it out of the park on that one.”

One hand came up to cover Kravitz’s face, laying over his half mask and eyes. Almost like pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It doesn’t usually go like this,” he sighed.

“How do the kidnappings usually go?” Taako teased. And god, what was he doing? He needed to get out of here. It was just that -

“I’m really more adept at hauntings,” his host said forlornly. “The abduction angle is new.”

It was just that everything Kravitz said was stranger, more unexpected, more absurd, more interesting than the last. And… strangely funny. It caught strange corners of Taako’s brain and captured his attention, raising flags and illuminating pathways that he wanted to go down-

But that didn’t mean he wanted to stay. In the dank candlelit sewer, with Kravitz, who, while it was clear he wasn’t a very skilled kidnapper and - whatever his thing was supposed to be here - had still been good enough to get Taako in the first place. And, atop that, was a person who’d just admitted to kidnapping Taako. And who seemed not to be terribly… thrown by the thought of it. Taako didn’t know anyone - well, until now - who seemed to view unwilling abduction as a done thing. No one Taako knew really considered that socially acceptable.

It reminded him that Kravitz, while… intriguing, was by no means safe.

It reminded him that he still needed to get the hell out of there. 

“Well,” he started, “the whole production could use some work, kemosabe. Points for the aesthetic,” he gestures vaguely to Kravitz’s getup, and the whole… opulent sewer situation, “but really, Taako’s rating this one a ‘room for improvement’ situation. Nice try, though, points for effort,” he cast his eyes around as he rambled, trying to see if there were any visible exits, but the only way he could see was back the way he came in - through Kravitz’s “house” - past Kravitz. 

Nothing for it but to try, he thought. 

“Thanks a bunch,” he said, inching forward, “glad to be of assistance workshopping - well, no, not glad, really - but I uh… I’m going to need to be on my way.” He stepped forward, purposeful. Kravitz countered, stepping in front of him, blocking his path. Shit.

“I am terribly sorry,” he said, and the thing was he actually sounded it, “but I really can’t let you do that.”

[terezis]

“Why can’t I see you?”

"We-e-ell," Taako starts, "that'd be the invisibility spell."

Lup makes a clicking noise with her tongue that somehow manages to sound both sympathetic and sarcastic as hell. It’s a gift. She's talented like that. "Yeah, no, I see that," she says, "but—"

"I think the point is that you don't, actually. You can't see me. I'm invisible."

At that Lup rolls her eyes. She'd expected some primetime bullshit when Taako had called her out here, like just some Grade A, deli-fresh baloney when he'd told her to be discreet for once in her life, but this is ridiculous. Even for Taako. "Aren't you a wizard? Can't you like, I don't know... dispel it?"

"Lulu, if I could dispel it, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?"

Lup remains unmoved. She rocks on her heels and makes a real show of considering the negative space where her brother should be. "I mean, I don't know what you want me to do about this, Ko..."

"Lup."

"Look on the bright side," she says cheerily. "Cap'nport can't yell at you for stealing what was clearly a cursed necklace—"

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty, Lup."

"He can't give you any demerits if he can't find you. This is great."

"Okay, one, he absolutely can," Taako says. "He keeps track of them on the white board in his office and you know that. Two, those demerits are bullshit. We've been running from the Vorepocalypse for—what, thirty years? Who's gonna fuckin' court martial us? Our workplace is refried beans. Those demerits are literally nothing!"

"But they make you feel bad, though," Lup says.

Taako groans. "They make me feel bad, though."

Lup hums. "Tell you what, Ko. I'll dispel the invisibility for you."

For obvious reasons, she can't see it, but Lup takes great pleasure in imagining the twitch of Taako's ears and the flat, unimpressed look on his face. She knows it's there. She's a sister; she's got a good sense for these things.

"What's the catch?" Taako asks, and oh, yes, she can practically hear his scowl.

Lup resists the urge to grin and instead places her hand very delicately over her heart. "Taako, I'm hurt. you think I'd take advantage of you in your time of need? Is that what you see me as, Koko? An extortionist?"

"Lup."

"You think I'd extort you? My dear—my only brother?" Silence. Lup presses her lips together to hide her smile. "Your shoes," she says.

Taako groans.

"The red ones. The boots? With the skinny heel? Gimme the shoes and I'll get rid of the curse."

"Those shoes are designer! No!"

Just as Lup opens her mouth to respond, the door to the observation deck opens behind them. Light footsteps sound at the end of the hall.

"Taako, is that you?" Davenport says. "Why didn't you come inside when you got back? How'd the mission go?"

Lup glances back towards her brother's shadow. "Shoes," she mouths.

Taako lets out an audibly annoyed breath. "You're a nightmare," he hisses. "The shoes are under my bed. Hurry up and dispel it before he sees!"

"Well, technically, it's what he wouldn't see—“

"Lup!"

-

There's a team meeting the next morning; when Taako and Lup walk in, their captain is sitting at the kitchen counter, thumbing through a stack of paper and sipping from a chipped mug. He glances up when he hears them arrive.

"Morning, guys. Lup, are those new shoes? They look great on you."

Taako's scowl - plainly visible on his face - is the sweetest prize of all.