hook, line, and sunken memories
Summary:
taako takes angus fishing and opens up a little
Notes: (transposed from AO3)
We spent the weekend at Lake Cumberland back at the beginning of October and I got to chill in the boat while my stepdad tried to catch fish. (he caught the world’s smallest catfish lol) I wrote part of this from our cottage/hotel room and I would sit there feeling the phantom boat sways for Literal Hours.
I gotta say, the relationship between Taako and Angus is one of my favorite ones in the entire series. There’s so much there that goes unspoken for one reason or another, but you can see it, right there, in between the lines. You just gotta look for ‘em.
>this is set after the wrestling show and may or may not be after the 11th hour, idk
[potential warning for potentially inaccurately portrayed anxiety attack]
Word count: 2601
part of the beautiful magic boys series.
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When Taako tells Angus to wear something light and comfortable one day in the late spring, Angus expects something wildly different. Angus suspects Taako’s going to train him about a special magic or take him on an exciting adventure. What he doesn’t expect is Taako tugging him off to an utterly massive lake in the middle of Faerun with nothing but a boat, a compact box, and a couple of fishing poles.
Angus blinks when Taako steps up to the boat tied to a small dock. “Sir?” he asks, because he just has to. This kind of scenario is so strange, so different, that he can’t even tell if this is out of character for the wizard.
Taako, on his part, is already sitting in the boat, threading bait onto the hooks tied to the end of the fishing line attached to each pole. “Yeah, boychik?” he asks, glancing back at the boy. Taako looks nothing like your standard fisherman in his high wasted shorts that hug his ass and the almost shear blouse he’s wearing—Angus can see some sort of undergarment through the material, but he decides not to comment. His floppy wizard hat is absent and his long hair is tied up in bun and held in place by what Angus would swear is a magic wand. He’s wearing light shoes that look like they were made to take water and it’s honestly the most sensible part of the outfit, if the boy detective is allowed a say.
“…You fish?” are the only words that can come out of Angus’s mouth with any sort of coherency and the boy nearly slaps his own forehead in embarrassment.
“Sure! Cha’boy loves to get out on the water and cast himself a line. It’s chill as fuck, my dude.” Taako wraps up his prep work and waves Angus over to the boy. “C’mon, get in. I need your help to untie this bad boy.”
“Where do you need me, sir?” Angus is hesitant to approach the boat, but since Taako has no problems with it, it should probably be okay. Taako’s not the sort to put himself in any unnecessary danger.
“You take the front. I’ll get the back,” Taako says, holding out a hand to Angus when the boy gets closer. “Watch your step.”
Angus takes the proffered hand and steps into the boat. It doesn’t move the way he expects it to and doesn’t slip out from under him, tied firmly to the dock, but it still wobbles enough for him to stumble. He lets out a little gasp and hurriedly grasps Taako with his other hand.
“You’re good, Agnes, you’re good. I gotcha.” Taako helps Angus to the only passenger seat in the tiny boat. He takes his own seat behind the wheel—the “driver’s seat”—and grins at the boy. “So, as I’m sure you’ve deduced,” he begins, wiggling his fingers at Angus, smiling when the kid laughs, “I brought you here so we can cast some lines. And!” Taako waves a hand over the tech attached to the back of the boat and it jolts a little. Angus hadn’t even noticed it. “This isn’t technically a boat built for speed, buuuut, I just so happen to be fuckin’ baller at this magic shit, so that’s not really a problem for me.”
Angus tilts his head. “So what are you saying?”
Taako’s grin is the cat that caught the canary. He stands again and gestures for Angus to move to the front of the boat. “I’m sure your genius little boy brain and figure it out.” He moves to the rope tied to the cleat on the back of the boat. “I need you to stretch your arm out to the dock there, boychik, but be careful not to fall in. Can you reach it?”
Angus leans as far out of the boat as he feels comfortable with, but he can’t get close enough for his fingers to even graze the edge. “Sorry, sir!”
“No worries, homie. I’ll just hop out for a sec,” Taako says, practically leaping from the boat onto semi-solid land. It’s so flawless and graceful Angus is momentarily stunned. Has Taako always been able to do that? Taako moves to the front of the boat and wraps his hands around the rope keeping the front of the boat attached to the dock. “I’m gonna pull the nose around and I want you to just hold onto the dock for now, ‘kay?”
“Okay, sir!” Angus chirps, finally able to grab the wood. “Can I hold onto this ring here?” he asks, pointing to where the rope is looped through a metal ring bolted to the dock.
“Yeah, perfect! I’m gonna loosen the rope from the cleat here and once I untie the back, I’m gonna need you to shove away from the dock as hard as you can, got it?” Taako loosens the knot on the rope and pulls it out of the ring, tossing it back on the boat.
“Got it!” Angus flashes him a bright and cheery grin and Taako can’t help the small smile that slips onto his own face.
Taako carefully steps back onto the boat and unties the knot on the back cleat, pulling the rope free quickly so it won’t fall into the water. “Okay, Angles, push!”
As Angus shoves as hard as his little arms can, Taako stretches a hand out to the tech and mutters a few words, casting a modified Animate Objects on the mystery tech. The boat starts to move and Taako holds onto the wheel, spinning it to the right to get the boat moving out into open water. The boat’s moving slow enough for Angus to stumble back to his seat, which he does with a wary smile.
Taako laughs at him, and grins, directing the boat further and further across the surface of the lake. “Okay, so, yeah, I’m using magic to make this thing go, because let’s face it, home boy, we aren’t exactly proficient in the strength department, ya feel?” Angus just nods and Taako laughs again. “You’re lookin’ a little green there, pumpkin. Don’t sweat it, you’re not gonna fall out or anything.
“That said, uh, this boat’s p small and not exactly built for speed, so uh,” Taako grins and stifles some giggles. “Hold on tight, Ango!” Taako barely gives Angus a chance to process the words before he’s pushing his hand towards his makeshift motor and the boat goes ripping across the water, cutting cleanly through the lake’s glassy smooth surface.
The wind feels good on their faces, if a little cold, and Angus closes his eyes and lets himself enjoy it. They aren’t moving that fast, especially compared to how fast the Bureau’s canons can go, but Taako thinks that if they go any faster, they might have a hard time staying in the boat.
They ride around the lake for almost ten minutes before finally slowing to a halt in the middle of the water, completely surrounded by a shimmering, smooth surface. It’s a nice day for this, Angus thinks. Warm and decently sunny, but with enough cloud coverage to keep them cool.
Taako ends his Animate Objects spell and gives them a minute to settle into their new position on the lake. Angus glances over to see Taako’s face tilted towards the sky, eyes closed and face more relaxed than Angus can ever remember seeing him before. A particularly hard wind rocks the boat ever so slightly and he feels something hit his shoe.
The Umbra Staff is at his feet and Angus, for just is second, is confused. Was it here before? Angus can’t remember seeing it before, but was it because it wasn’t here before or was it just because he didn’t notice? And if he didn’t notice, why didn’t he?
Before Angus can open his mouth to say anything, Taako comes back to himself and glances down. “Oh! There you are!” he says, reaching down to pick the staff up. He unlatches the ribbon holding the umbrella closed and spreads it open, using it as a sun shield. Angus can’t help but stare at how tight Taako’s grip on the handle is. Is it always that tight?
Taako rises to his feet and steps to the back of the boat, digging the poles out from where he’d stowed them along the outside wall. “C’mere and take a pole. Lemme show you how to cast.”
Angus smiles and pushes the thoughts of the umbrella out of his mind. (Are any of these things connected to that time it blasted those letters on the wall? Just what was that about, anyway?) “Okay, sir!”
Taako spends the next several minutes demonstrating the best ways to cast a line out into the open water and how hook and reel the line in when it feels like there’s a fish eating at the bait. The Umbra Staff ends up being more of a nuisance than not, so Taako collapses it and lays it across his lap, one hand almost always touching it at any point in time.
Angus finally gets a handle on casting after about a dozen tries. Taako flashes him a grin that would prove hard to defend as anything but proud, and it fills the boy detective with warmth all the way down to his toes. Taako tosses out his own line and sits back, popping the staff open again and resting it over his shoulder, looking utterly content in a way Angus has never seen before.
After about twenty minutes of peaceful silence, Angus starts feelings sleepy. He tried to go to bed early last night so he could be awake today but he was too excited and ended up only getting a few hours in, something he’s paying for now. He yawns hugely, covering his mouth with one hand, the only still wrapped around the handle of his pole. He glances over at Taako, whose eyes are closed as he leans against the staff, and can’t help but ask, “Do you do this often?”
“Hmmm?” Taako hums, opening his eyes and looking over at Angus. He has complete heterochromia (his left eye is a mercurial silver and the other is bright green), Angus notes, and he’s almost embarrassed he’s never noticed until now, but then he remembers that Taako doesn’t often give him so much of his full attention. “Oh,” the elf says, seemingly just registering the question. “I used to do it more often, but I haven’t since joining the Bureau. It’s a useful skill.” Taako appears to be finished with speaking, but Angus feels like there’s more to the story.
“What kind of uses, sir?” Angus asks, tilting his head.
Taako gives him a suspicious glance before he smirks and quirks an eyebrow. “You’re the boy genius. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
“But I want you to tell me, sir!” Angus has to play this right and work into Taako’s pride or else he’ll never open up. Luckily it seems to work.
“That’s because I’m the expert, natch.” Taako shakes his pole a little and jerks it once or twice before settling back down. “So like. First of all, people eat fish, duh. If you got a pole, or something likeit, and you’re camped out beside a river or a lake, then that’s free food.” Taako smiles like he just revealed a huge secret. “Sure you also gotta know how to descale ‘em and cook ‘em but that’s no prob. Fish are good for ya.”
“Have you had to do that a lot?” Angus has no idea if he’s pushing his luck with the question, but he’s knee deep in investigation mode and he’s going to take this path as far as Taako will let him.
“All the time, ‘specially growing up.” Taako pauses and tucks a loose hair behind one of his long ears. It twitches just enough to make the chain on the cuff earring jingle. He goes quiet long enough to make Angus think that he’s done—for real this time—but he continues, much to Angus’s surprise.
“I grow up on the road, hopping from caravan to caravan when I could. Camped out when I couldn’t.” Taako shrugs and gives the Umbra Staff a lazy spin. “Was hard, tryin’a get by with nothin’, but we couldn’t go to a home because they were try to separate us—” Taako freezes and his grip on the umbrella goes white knuckled.
Angus watches this happen in rapt fascination. From one second to the next, goes from loose and content to rigid and anxious. Taako’s eyes are blown wide and unfocused, his shoulders are stiff, his breathing is shallow, and he’s clenching the pole and staff so hard Angus is sure they’ll both break. To Angus’s untrained eye, Taako seems to be in the midst of a full-blown anxiety attack, and it’s scary to the eleven-year-old.
“S-sir?” Angus squeaks out, jumping to his feet, hands hovering over his mentor, unsure whether he should touch him or not.
Taako’s pole clatters to the bottom of the boat as his hand flies up to his ear, finely manicured nails digging into the soft flesh. Angus reaches up to move the hand away—he’s very much not an expert on elven anatomy, being a little human boy, but he knows enough to know that elf ears are incredibly sensitive, and that clawing at them must be excruciating—but before he can, Taako lets go and gasps in a deep breath that quickly turns into coughing and gagging.
“Taako, sir, are you alright?” Angus knows he’s being pretty useless right now, but he just wants to help. What had even set Taako off? Something about being separated from someone? Another orphan, perhaps? (And the thought of Taako being an orphaned kid living off the streets is so contradictory to the Taako he knows now that Angus almost wants to dismiss it as an elaborate goof—but why would he joke about something like this? And if it was a joke, even Taako would have stopped it before it got to the point of an actual, literal anxiety attack. It had to be real, which just made it feel even more unreal.)
It takes a minute, but Taako finally manages to somewhat control his breathing. He wraps his free hand around the long handle of the staff and leans into it eyes closed and chest heaving. “Sorry about that, boychik,” he says, voice soft and faint. “No idea what happened there, but, hey, shit happens.”
“You don’t have to apologize, sir,” Angus tells him moving to sit beside Taako. “That didn’t look like a goof.”
“Almost wish it was. ‘S not very fun if it’s real,” Taako says, and Angus feels like there’s a deeper meaning that escapes him.
“Who were you afraid to be separated from?” Angus’s voice is so quiet, Taako might not have been able to hear it if not for his elven hearing. One of his ears twitches in the boy’s direction and Angus’s eyes flit over to it at the movement.
“I dunno,” Taako says, taking a deep breath, “but It feels like I’m forgetting something.”
“Do you wanna go back to the base?”
Taako takes and deep breath, holds it, and lets it out slowly. “Not yet. Let’s just… relax. For a bit.”
“Okay.”
Angus falls asleep ten minutes later. If he ends up slumped against Taako, and Taako wraps an arm around the boy’s shoulders? Well.
That’s between him and the Umbra Staff.
