Chapter Text
"I've decided to try making a friend." Lup said.
"Making a friend, or making a friend?" Taako asked immediately, because apparently he knew her or something.
"Making a friend." She repeats, because clarifying is for losers (unless she's teaching, in which case obviously she'll clarify as much as needed.)
"Uh huh." Taako narrowed his eyes. "And you'll be doing that outside or in your lab?"
"I have a computer in my lab." Lup said. Because she does. A true statement. If someone, say her twin brother who loved asking questions so much that he might as well marry them, decided to interpret that as her using said computer to find a friend well that was his fault, wasn't it?
Taako, for some unknown reason, looked even more suspicious.
"Anyway, bye!" Lup shoved a the last slice of toast in her mouth, grabbed her coffee and keys, and headed to the basement door across the flagstone floor.
"Uh, if you think for a second that cha'boy is going to let you fuck around with dark and powerful magics without help then you're even stupider than you look." Taako appeared just in front of her, because of course he wouldn't bother running to beat her to the door. Taako refused to be seen exercising.
"We're twins, goofus." Lup nudged him with her knee.
"Jury's still out on that one."
Lup snorted. She knew defeat, there was no way Taako wasn't going to stick to her like glue today. Well fine. Fine! He could come and make a friend with her. It was good for them to socialise.
"Fine. You can come too."
"Urgh." Taako pretended to droop dramatically. "I can't believe you're making cha'boy work on his day off. Taako had plans, Taako had things to attend to!"
"Name literally one thing you were going to do?" Lup asked as Taako moved aside so she could open the door. It creaked dramatically even though she'd oiled it last night, which meant the fun 'spooky castle noises' spell was definitely a winner. She hoped she'd written it down this time, she could probably sell it for millions if she could remember exactly what she'd done. The torches, bracketed to the wall, fwoomped into life as they moved, lighting the stone stairs.
"Uh." Taako replied.
"Yeah, that's what I thought." Lup started walking. Despite the rest of the house being toasty there was always a small chill from the basement. She wasn't sure if it came from the house's need to yes and their decor choices, or if there was actually some kind of hole she needed to fix somewhere down here, but she preferred to think it was the former.
Taako clattered down the stairs behind her in his wildly inappropriate shoes. "So, what're we doing?"
"I told you, I…" she said and Taako immediately huffed at the lack of inclusion.
Lup rolled her eyes and continued "…we, are socialising."
She turned the large iron ring in the basement door and it opened into her lab. She grinned, because she grinned every time. The joy should have worn off by now, but it was so endlessly perfect that she couldn't help herself. There were beakers and test tubes and wires and all the equipment she'd always wanted and never been able to have. She got to set it up the way she liked, leave it out and not have to hide it; she could do whatever experiments she pleased and oh how she pleased.
"Yeah yeah, perfect lab, look at all the dohickeys, get out of the way." Taako shoved past her (gently) and pretended that he didn't work just as hard as her to make this for her, and that they hadn't done the exact same thing with Taako's kitchen. As if they hadn't purposefully gone out of their way to craft somewhere they got to belong.
Taako headed for the slab, his usual perch.
"Hang on, you…" Lup started.
"You made a dude?" Taako looked down at the vessel in a particularly judgy way.
"I made a house." Lup said firmly.
"You made a dude house, a house dude? Like a house boat but less damp?"
"It's not just a dude house, anyone's welcome to come try it on!"
"Like hermit crabs?" Taako asked.
"Ghost hermit crabs." Lup nods, because why not. It's nearly exactly the same as getting a new shell, right?
"And the aim is?"
"That someone gets a nice new house."
"And…?" Taako prodded.
"…and?" Lup repeated, because she hated to make it too easy for him.
"We get a new friend?" Taako finished. Lup would appreciate it if he would occasionally stop having the uncanny ability to read her thoughts.
"If they want to be." She shrugged.
That was the real rub of it. There was no guarantee. But Lup was tired of being stuck up here in the house, as lovely as it was, as good of a job as they had done. She was tired of the villagers getting the wrong idea and chasing them with torches; tired of people cowering away from her, tired of having to go to the local pub to get their post because they guy who delivered it was scared to come anywhere near. Sure, some of them were nice, but she didn't see Magnus that often, he was busy with Julia and the dog squad and people got twitchy if he came up too much anyway. Merle was off doing his tours, and that left her and Taako. It could be worse, it could be much worse, it had been much worse, but she also just really really wanted to speak to someone new. Or, well, old, technically, but you know, new to her.
"Why'd you make it like that?" Taako peered down at the vessel.
"Like what?" Lup replied.
"Tom Arnold." Taako said.
"Huh." Okay, so maybe that hand't been a conscious decision, but last night she had the materials and the inclination and apparently a strong Tom Arnold-esque vision.
"So that wasn't on purpose?"
"No, but now that you mention it I see it though."
"Everyone can see it Lup, because you made Tom Arnold. World's biggest fan. Lifesize rendering, roll up and see it."
"He's not dead is he?" Lup asked, ignoring the rest of it, because if he's dead and he ends up here then that's probably going to look like derranged fan behaviour and not the gesture it's intended as.
"Nope, you're all good."
"So you recognised him and know if he's dead or not. Who's the big fan now?"
Taako rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say. Anyway, how do we get this show on the road? Heeeeeeerrrreee ghostie ghostie ghostie?"
"No." Lup said. "Stop it. There's a spell."
"Oh, well if there's a spell." Taako pretended to investigate his nails, but Lup knew better.
"You wanna see?"
"Natch."
Taako was beside her by the time she had the right page in her notebook.
"Oh. This is neat. Taako likes the willing clause, also the bit about not doing evil shit. Although…"
"I know it's subjective, but cha'girl figured she had to try."
Taako nods, still looking.
"Need any help with the circle?"
"Wellllllll, you were always better than me at doing the lines." Lup knows flattery will get her everywhere. Plus, this is going to be Taako's friend too, he can contribute. It's nice to have group project now and again, the last one was the glitter flame paintjob in her bedroom and it had been months.
Taako didn't even pretend to sulk about it when he grabbed the chalk.
It really was beautiful penmanship, (chalkmanship?) and that always made things easier. The power of their words flowed easily into the circle, strands of power pulling, but Lup knew what she was doing, this was a candyfloss machine and she had the stick. Casting with Taako was always easier too, she loved the way their magic flowed together, complimenting and reinforcing.
"Now we wait?" Taako asked once she had pushed the final bit of power into the cirlce.
"Now we wait." Lup agreed.
The flaming circle was actually pretty soothing, like a relaxing log cabin type situation. Taako brought snacks, Lup dug out some cards which were quickly disregarded in favour of chatting, and, by the time fire flared blue, diseappeared, and the vessel sat up they'd forgotten why they were there.
"Wuh." It said, elegantly, natch, Lup did a great job on the vessel. There definitely shouldn't have been any limitation on word choice.
Lup jumped and nearly sent a bowl of tortilla chips flying.
"Fuck." Taako looked just as shocked.
"Shit. What we meant to say was, hello and welcome." Lup recovered as quickly as she could.
"Yeah, hail and well met." Taako gave a half salute and Lup fought not to roll her eyes.
"Hi?" The whoever was inside the vessel replied tentatively.
"Nice to meet you!" Lup stood. "Is it okay if I check you over and make sure everything has taken okay?" She froze. "Wait, shit, sorry, cha'girl forgot to ask your name…. shit, or tell you mine. I'm Lup."
"And my handle's Taako." Taako said.
"Have you got a name?" Lup asked. "Do you remember?"
"Barry." Said, apparently, Barry.
"Hi Barry." Lup said.
"How did uh… well, how did I get here?" Barry asked.
Lup was finding it hard to judge his tone. Hopefully he wasn't scared.
"You did get the choice though, right? It did defiintely ask you about your willingness to do this?" Lup worked really hard on that bit, she didn't want to just yank some poor unsuspecting ghost who was trying to mind their own business.
"Yes, yeah, uh, I thought that was a really neat bit of the conjuring actually. I liked the way you incorporated it. I wouldn't have thought to add it the way you did, inspired." Barry seemed to brighten up at the opportunity to talk nerdy.
"Oh, you know magic?"
"Uh, I… yeah." Barry said. "I just, why did you do this?"
Lup shrugged. "I was kinda bored."
"So you decided to rewrite the rules of death for entertainment?" Barry shifted his position, stretching his legs.
"Natch." Taako said. "How else are you going to fill a Tuesday."
Barry pondered this. "Good point…" He looked down and examined the cirlce. "Will you talk me through it?"
"Gimme an idea of what knowledge base you're working with my dude?" Lup asked. There was no way she was trying to explain this in depth if he hadn't got at least a basic theoretical understanding.
"I'm a scientist." Barry said, then paused. "I was a scientist."
"Nah, you can still be a scientist. We love science. Let me know what kind of thing you like working on and we'll get set up." Lup had really won the jackpot here, she had a new friend who shared her interests!
"Speak for yourself." Taako said, as if he wasn't involved in this.
"Well fine, Barry and I will work on our experiments without you. Wouldn't want your un-nerdy reputation to be marred by our sciency stuff." Lup stuck her tongue out.
Taako just rolled his eyes.
"I was working on an engine." Barry said, spinning himself to sit sideways on the stone slab so his legs hung off the side. "Powered by bonds." He looked excited.
"Nerd alert." Lup couldn't help herself.
"Oh… uh." Barry shrank back a little.
"No wait, I was joking, like, you know, ribbing." Lup said. She needed to make sure she didn't alienate Barry. "Tell me about the bond engine?"
Barry did.
Lup perched herself on the slab too, grabbed her notebook to keep track, and settled in. Barry's work was fascinating.
Eventually, Taako yawned dramatically and heaved himself to his feet. "See you later, losers, Taako's going to make something for dinner."
"Am I going on too much?" Barry asked, he sounded concerned about the prospect of boring Taako.
"Nah, Taako just likes to pretend he's cooler than he is." Lup said, loud enough for Taako to hear and shoot her the finger over his shoulder as he walked up the stairs. "He does this whole thing where he pretends to be a 'simple idiot wizard' and he doesn't want you ruining his rep by revealing he knows what he's talking about."
"Oh." Barry took a moment to digest that. "And you?"
"I love science." Lup smiled. "So keep telling me about the engine?"
Barry did.
"I'm sorry. I've just talked about work for ages." Barry grimaced. "I'm trying to do that less… I was trying… Huh." He took a moment, brow furrowed, and looked to be thinking deeply. It was hard not to have a complete read on him, but that seemed most likely.
He turned to her. "Lup, am I dead?"
It was a good question.
"Yes but no." Lup said, confidently.
"I'm not sure I follow." Barry's eyebrows knit together.
"Well you're not dead, because you're here."
"Right."
"But you had to be at least a bit dead to get here." Lup tried to give a reassuring smile, that probably wasn't the greatest information to receive.
"Huh." Barry took a moment.
"How did you choose me?" He asked.
"You chose you." Lup said. "Nothing to do with me, my guy, I just put the call out into the planes and you answered."
"Right." Barry paused again. "What did you do to mitigate the whole, it's a crime to the nature of life to un-die thing?"
"I basically just did CPR." Lup shrugged.
"Right." Barry doesn't sounds like he's convinced. "And the bounty hunters?"
"The what now?" Lup asked.
"Oh dear." Barry said.
There was a loud yell from upstairs, unmistakably Taako, unmistakably unhappy.
"Shit." Barry said. "We should check on that."