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Keep it together.
Taako knows better than to be taken in by a pretty smile and a soft spoken word. He knows. He does. But he gets taken in anyway. He’s not very smart. He hates that he has a heart that desperately wants to know what it’s like to fall in love, but it can’t.
(Or maybe it won’t. Maybe he won’t let it. Maybe every time he gets caught up in wild infatuation with the first person to show him kindness, maybe he clamps down on that feeling a little harder and shoves it down a little deeper.)
He can’t afford love.
Keep it together.
He loves kind people. He loves the way they light up a room and the way they make him feel and the way they make him laugh. He hates kind people. He hates the way they do that for everyone and not just him. He hates how he wants it to be just him. He hates how disgustingly petty he is when he’s trained himself to think he wants for nothing at all.
A pair of soft brown eyes won’t convince Taako to love. A warm hand on the small of his back or a strong pair of arms lifting him like a feather won’t change his mind when later those eyes will be on someone else, or somewhere else, or thinking about something else in a place that Taako can’t reach. He doesn’t want to reach there. He tells himself he definitely doesn’t want to reach there.
(In reality, he wants to exist there. He wants to smother that memory in his own until it suffocates. But if he does that, he doesn’t know if he has it in him to fill that hole it leaves. That doesn’t stop him from wanting it but quietly, selfishly, and in the dark where he can admit it to himself and no one else.)
Traitorous feelings threaten to well up and bubble over in Taako’s stomach at the quiet, rough calling of his name in the early morning. Magnus sounds surprised to see him there, in the kitchen. Taako is surprised to be there. He’s long since broken the habit of taking his emotions out on food, mostly because he is afraid. He is so very afraid of hurting anyone else, or himself. He is as fragile as a soap bubble and full of poison. He could burst and any moment and everything could come pouring out.
Keep it together.
So he stands, too afraid to touch a thing, too afraid to go back to sleep. He stands there frozen, and he must be shaking because a warm arm wraps around his shoulders and a soft reassurance is whispered in his ear. He throws off that warmth and runs because he needs to. He’s not sure if he wants to be chased.
Magnus follows, but he’s not fast. Taako is very, very fast. He could escape this if he wanted to. He could let this agonizing frustration be cleansed by the morning light and never think about it again. He could drift away slowly, just like he always does. Suddenly, it hurts to breathe. Taako’s eyes burn. He slows to a stop.
It takes a few seconds for Magnus to catch him. Taako throws his head back in a bitter laugh that echoes through the courtyard. The sun is just beginning to rise, and no one is awake, and when it’s empty here it all seems so fake, so artificial. It makes him want to tear out his hair. It makes him feel stir crazy and feral. He sets his back stiff and straight and holds his breath.
He can feel it when Magnus reaches for him, hesitates, touches him anyway.
Taako crumbles under those fingers. He cries. It’s painful, and it rips out of his chest as a loud, open mouthed wail. He lets himself be held. He lets those hands pet his hair and he lets himself pretend that he’s loved. He lets himself pretend that he’s in love.
(He doesn’t have to pretend.)
Magnus sings, and it’s an elvish lullaby, and Taako cries harder. He hates this kindness. He hates that even as he cries for what he can never have again, on the shoulder of a man he told himself never to want, that he is being shown such consideration. It makes it so much more difficult not to cling tighter and try harder and want more. It makes it that much harder for Taako to tell himself that he’s better off alone.
Taako wants this. He wants it so desperately it aches, but he doesn’t have enough to give in return. He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve the way Magnus’s hands comb through his hair softly, or the way his voice shakes from some unknown emotion.
He doesn’t deserve to have the things that make him happy.
He tries to pull away, and Magnus releases him only just far enough to take Taako’s face between both hands. Taako sees that Magnus is on the verge of tears as well. For some reason it seems almost comical. The idea of someone caring about him so much is laughable, so he laughs, but it comes with more tears. Calloused fingers wipe them away. It’s not comfortable, but it is comforting.
Taako says that he’s ok. He doesn’t know which one of them he’s trying to convince, but it isn’t really working for either of them. He hates the concern in Magnus’s eyes, all welled up with tears. Tears for him. He hates that he’s done this, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.
His hands feel useless, hanging at his sides, so he puts them on Magnus’s waist. Suddenly there is an awkward moment caught in between them, a foot between their faces, with neither one daring to so much as breath, just in case it tips the moment one way or the other. Then, for some reason, Taako decides he’s tired of waiting for the tension to break.
He leans forward and inch. It’s just an inch, but it’s enough. Suddenly eye contact drops and a shaky breath is drawn and Magnus.
(Magnus is the one who crosses the distance. He’s strangely eager, and teeth collide, and there’s a split second of readjustment and then it’s better.)
Taako doesn’t know whether to push him away or pull him closer, so he does neither. Magnus pulls away, and Taako licks his lips. They’re salty, and he realizes too late he said that out loud. Magnus laughs. His eyes have an almost manic gleam that quickly turns fearful. Anxious.
Taako blows out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and leans his forehead against a warm body. Big hands rub circles on his back, and he doesn’t know why, because he already knows, but he asks if that was just to calm him down.
(Maybe, just maybe, it’s because he really needs to hear the answer out loud.)
Maybe the first time in his life, Taako gets an answer he wants to hear. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t make him feel any better. If anything, it ties his stomach in uncomfortable knots. He’s glad that Magnus can’t see his face.
Magnus asks if he wants to talk about this later. Taako wants to talk about this never, but he nods.
Neither of them let go.
Morning light is creeping up over the domes now, and Taako finally lifts his head, asks for an honest opinion on his appearance. If there’s one thing he does well, it’s mask emotion with humor. Magnus laughs, and it’s big and genuine and Taako wants to own the sound of it.
(Magnus tells him he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Taako nearly cries again, but he manages to bite it back.)
He has the sudden urge to tell Magnus all the things he’s afraid of. He even starts to. Taako opens his mouth to say that he’s not sure if he loves Magnus or the way he makes him feel. Taako opens his mouth to say that he’s toxic, and everything he touches dies eventually. Taako opens his mouth to say he’s skittish, and sometimes sullen, and sometimes hysterical and unreasonable, and yet somehow all of this is wrapped up a healthy layer of narcissism, but instead all that happens is his mouth goes dry, and his eyes must look so terrified that Magnus furrows his brow and begins rubbing soft shapes into Taako’s shoulder blades again.
Taako realizes, with a sharp pain, that Magnus probably has things that he can’t say too.
So they say nothing.
And instead, for now, they just allow themselves to be held.