Magnus has trouble looking at Lup after the day of Story and Song.
She doesn’t realize this for a while. The Starblaster crew lives in tense harmony on the moon base for a while rebuilding efforts begin and during this time, Taako and Barry barely let her out of their sight. She understands, of course. She’s not exactly keen on straying too far from them either. But little by little, she’s noticed that Magnus barely looks at her, barely talks to her, and has absolutely not taken her up on her offer to 420 blaze it after the apocalypse. She figures that last part was due to her still not having a body, but she can't be certain.
It all comes to a head early one morning when Taako’s out in Refuge and Barry’s still sleeping. Lup finds herself in the shared dorm kitchen, watching Magnus blearily start a pot of coffee.
“Morning Maggie,” she says, floating behind him, rifling through the cabinets to grab some mugs.
Magnus startles and turns in her direction, not quite meeting her gaze. He smiles weakly at her. “Morning Lup.” He deftly moves out if her way, giving her a wide berth so as to not pass through her form.
“Hey, is something wrong? You’ve been acting real weird around me lately.” She floats over to retrieve sugar from the cabinet.
“No, everything’s good,” Magnus says quickly, hoping to drop the subject.
“Bullshit, Magnus. You kinda forget that I’ve known you longer than you’ve had a right to be alive. Something’s up. Are you mad that I’m cutting in on bro time or something? Because I know everyone’s been doting over me lately and I’m sorry if you –“
“I didn’t stop you,” he says bluntly, looking at Lup directly for the first time in weeks. Suddenly she misses when he wouldn’t look at her. His gaze is haunted, heavy with grief in a way she has never seen before, not even during some of their worst cycles.
“What are you talking about?” Lup asks, gesturing a little to get her point across. Some of the finer details of communication are lost when you have a skull face that’s not great at expressions.
“Before you left. For the last time. I was right there and I didn’t stop you. We talked. And then you left. And then you died and got erased and I could have stopped you!” Magnus looks physically pained and Lup can feel herself deflate.
“Magnus, you couldn’t have. Nobody could have. My mind was made up. Besides, it wasn’t your job to keep me from doing stupid shit.”
“Yes it was and I couldn’t even do that right. I was the security officer. My whole point of being on that ship in the first place was to protect the team. What’s the point in being a protector if I can’t keep anyone safe?” Magnus spits bitterly, more at himself than at Lup.
She floats over to him. “That’s ridiculous, bud. You’ve saved all our bacon so much. You were made to protect people.”
“I didn’t keep you from leaving. I didn’t keep Lucy from doing what she did.”
“You couldn’t have stopped her, either. You know how headstrong we both are.”
Magnus laughs in spite of himself but it quickly dies in his throat.. “Taako almost died a bunch this year and I just sat by. If he had died then what would have happened to you?”
Lup crosses her arms. “But he didn’t die. You protected him. You forget, I saw all of your missions. You did a damn good job.”
Magnus shrugs. He thinks about something for a moment, wincing. “Lup. I couldn’t protect my town. My father-in-law.” He pauses for a moment, looking absolutely despondent. “I couldn’t protect Julia. A-and what makes it worse is that I can’t even remember what I couldn’t protect her from. My wife is dead and I don’t know what happened and nobody will tell me. They all say they can’t.” Magnus’s voice breaks as he recounts this aloud for the first time in a while. He looks past Lup, gazing at the wall with a thousand-yard stare.
They’ve all discussed Magnus’s situation. Of course they all have. They’ve all tried desperately to figure out a way to return this knowledge to Magnus. To gift him with the ability to put a name to a tragedy. Ignorance is not bliss and that is something they all know far too well. The effort seems fruitless. There’s no way around the magic from Wonderland.
Lup desperately wants to give Magnus a hug but it’s futile with no body. She’s thinking about who she could outsource the job to when Magnus clears his throat.
“I’ve never told anyone this, Lup.” He begins, gaze still fixed in the wall. “I was going to be a dad.” He shuts his eyes as though that action can shield him from the truth.
No. No. No, anything but this. Lup’s heart drops. “Really?”
Magnus nods, his lips pressed in a tight line. “Julia was pregnant. She told me about a month before I left for Neverwinter for that craftsmen showcase. That stupid fuckingshowcase,” he sneers. “’Oh great, Mr. Burnsides, you’re a master carpenter, also everyone you know and love is dead!’”
Lup’s unsure of what to say. So she says nothing. She just listens.
“I uh. I built a rocking chair. For the showcase. I could have built anything but I wanted this to be the first thing we had for the baby.” The venom is gone from Magnus’s voice, leaving the burly human sounding so profoundly numb.
“Magnus, I’m so sorry. I-“ she trails off. What do you say? “I know I have no idea what that feels like and I’m so sorry that you do.”
“You do, though. You’re just lucky. You got him back. Time and time again, you got him back. And he got you back. It just took a while.” Magnus is still looking away, unwilling to let himself be more vulnerable than he’s already been before the sun is fully up.
Lup feels like she’s been punched in the gut. It’s true, she’s lost Barry but not in her wildest dreams would she ever compare it to what Magnus has been though. She moves so she’s in a seated position, floating inches over the counter. “Since we’re both being so honest this fine morning,” she begins, feeling oddly nervous. “I haven’t told anyone this, not even Taako. But when I was in the Staff, there was a time where I got so scared and so convinced that Barry was just going to give up on me. That he’d waited and searched long enough and that he’d just move on. And the thought of it made me sick and that made me feel selfish beyond all belief.”
“Lup, you know he would never, he’s never gonna love anyone like he loves you. When you get a love like that, there’s no replacing it. Ever.”
She nods. “I know that and I knew that then, I just got really scared.”
They sit in heavy silence for a while, not ready to change the subject but not ready to shut this moment of vulnerability like a Venus fly trap.
He turns and looks at her. “Yeah?”
She gives her best approximation of a smile in her spectral form. “I think you would have been a great dad.”
He gives her a bittersweet smile in return. “Thanks.”
Before they can say more, there’s the sound of life in the rest of the dorm. Magnus wordlessly wipes at his eyes before pouring a large mug of coffee. Lup places a ghostly hand on his shoulder for a moment before floating back to her and Barry’s temporary bedroom.
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