Day 5: AU day
…that turned into not really an au day and also im two days behind but hey we’re gonna roll with it
TazRarePair18 Pairing: Magnus/Barry (/Lup as always)
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4
@my-insanity-is-an-artform suggested accidental baby acquisition for an au, and then I started writing and suddenly the baby was a dog and now its not really an au at all but I had good intentions? also feelings happened. enjoy.
Barry enters the Starblaster’s common room to find Magnus Burnsides on the couch, fallen asleep where he sat, head tilted back against the cushions, mouth open wide and snoring gently.
Barry smiles to himself. This is where he has chosen to place his affections. Its unusual to find Magnus inside all by himself on such a nice day, and with the rest of the team engaged in a furious round of competitive gaming on the lawn, but Barry thinks that if he had the opportunity to sneak away for a nap in the cool shade of the ship, he probably would have too. He briefly considers joining Magnus on the couch.
Too bad they need him on their team for the next round of volleyball. If he stays Lup will just come looking for them both. Barry is about to go over to wake him when something else catches his eye.
Cradled to Magnus’s chest with one large hand is a tiny sleeping puppy.
Barry freezes.
The puppy snuffles in its sleep.
The room is very still save for the background hum of the Starblaster’s air circulation and the distant voices of their family outside.
Barry is struck with the sudden, intense realization that Magnus would make a really great dad. He doesn’t know why it’s this moment that does it, he’s seen Magnus around kids before. Maybe it’s because Magnus tends to act like an overgrown kid himself a lot of the time, and this–
He’s seen this before, he’d had friends with kids once, back on their home plane, he’s seen babies cradled against the chests of exhausted parents and it doesn’t matter that this is a dog and not a kid, he can’t shake the image from his mind.
The feeling that follows in the wake of this realization is three parts joy and one part sorrow, with a generous helping of yearning that shakes him to his core and lodges somewhere between his heart and his stomach in an uncomfortable knot.
He doesn’t know where Magnus got a puppy but he knows that he’ll have to leave it behind when the Hunger comes in a few months. He knows that Magnus knows this too, and Barry’s heart is already breaking for him. But the alternative, the option to not, not engage, not get attached, well.
That just isn’t Magnus.
It’s a conversation they’ve had before, played in the grey moments of the first nights after each reset, when the world ends but they start over, again and again, living on, living with it.
He’d asked Magnus once, in one of those moments, how he could stand to throw so much of his heart into things and people and worlds that would ultimately be lost, whether they ended up finding the Light or not.
“I remember them,” he’d said after a while. “They deserve to be remembered. If I can get to know them then I have those memories. And if I’m still here and my memories are still here, then they’re not completely gone, y’know?” He’d shrugged. “And anyway, I can’t just not, like, yeah it would be easier, but I dunno, I’m just not built like–”
Like Taako, they don’t say, because everyone copes in the ways they can, and it’s not as if Barry faults Taako for doing what he has to to stay sane, to protect himself. More days he ends up swinging further toward Taako’s philosophy than Magnus’s if he’s being honest.
It is easier.
Barry has gotten tired of imagining the future. Year after year another reset, year after year another new world, year after year this is their lives, and it gets harder and harder to imagine an after at all.
But it’s moments like these that keep him trying.
“Babe?” comes Lup’s voice from behind him. He’s stood here too long and they’ve sent in backup.
“Shhh,” he tells her gently, pointing to the couch and its occupants. Lup’s mouth falls open, eyes comically wide, like this is the cutest shit she’s ever seen.
“Oh my gods that’s precious, I’m getting the camera,” she whispers at him, and dashes as quietly as she can down the hall.
Memories, Barry thinks, watching the rise and fall of Magnus’s breathing, the tiny life clutched safe to his heart.
He’s certain he won’t be forgetting this anytime soon.
