#14 of the dialogue prompts, with Lup and Barry (or anyone else you want!) Love all your TAZ writing!!
14. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
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Barry had enough sense to realize that he had regrets in life. Honestly, who hadn't lived nearly two hundred years and not had a single regret? He regretted that the day they left on the Starblaster mission, he left unfolded laundry in his laundry basket. He regretted not telling Lup he loved her sooner. He regretted that time he died in cycle twenty-nine after falling off a horse.
But, quite possibly, his biggest regret was how deeply he had engraved a spooky aesthetic into himself.
"Hey, babe," Lup said. Her lich form was floating a few feet above his desk as he wrote replies to letters they had received. Being a savior of the universe apparently warranted a lot of fan mail.
"Hm?"
"You took theater classes in middle school, yeah?"
"Uhm, yeah," Barry said. "Why?"
"Oh you know," Lup said. "I was talking to Taako the other night and he was fillin' me in on the things I missed. And he was like "so you were listening to everything inside the staff, right?" and I was like "no, I needed the energy n' shit"."
"Uh-huh," Barry said, signing his name at the bottom of the paper.
"And he was like, "oh so you don't know about all the spooky shit Barold did". And I was like, no, of course not, tell me everything."
"Oh boy."
"Babe," Lup said, delightedly. Barry set his pen down and looked up. Lup's lich hands rested on his shoulders with a phantom grip. If her lich face could grin, Barry was very sure it would be right now. She made her voice a little echoey and deeper for the next part. "Are you afraid?"
"Listen-" Barry started, but Lup cut him off with,
"You do not know how to be afraid."
"Listen-" Barry said. Lup rested her hooded face against his head, laughing, form shuddering. Barry tried to beat back his blush with a stick. "I- I wanted them to listen to me!"
"Babe," Lup said.
"I didn't know what else to say!" Barry said, throwing his hands up. "I didn't know what would be static or not! Should I have just gone up to them and been like "hey, actually! We're real tight but you don't remember. Come with me to my cave where I'm growing a human body like a fuckin' pumpkin patch?""
"You did take them to the cave, though," Lup said. Her hands had slipped further around his neck and now she was just sort of nestled against his chest, in a way that would surely be uncomfortable if not for the fact that she could faze through the desk.
"It was necessary, at that point," Barry said. "I- yeah, I coulda phrased it better, sure. What d'you want from me?"
"I love you," Lup said with a sigh. She ran one of her hands through his hair. It felt like someone ran an ice cube along his head.
"I love you too," Barry said. "I do need to write these letters, though."
"Are you-" Lup cut herself off with a snigger, not moving out of his way and definitely not giving him enough space to write anything. "Are you afraid you won't get to them all?"
"You're never gonna let that go, are you?"
"Never," Lup promised.
