The thing about searching an entire plane for a single soul, even a soul as singular as Lucretia of Faerun's, is that it takes a long time. Time Taako isn't sure they actually have. That Lucretia may not have.
Where do we go from here? Taako finds himself circling back around to every few minutes. Lup and Barry had set up in the conference room again; Avi and Killian and Carey had helped with spell ingredients and kept the rest of the Bureau staff from interfering, but that was pretty much all the help the reapers had been willing to accept. So, while Killian and Carey had stepped in as co-directors and were keeping the peace, it left the rest of them at loose ends.
It left a long time for Taako to think, an activity he personally hates these days.
Merle and Magnus are reluctant to leave the conference room on the assumption that the reapers will be able to locate Lucretia and they'll need to set off at a moment's notice. Smart, but Taako knows his sister's tells. She's not sure she'll get an answer for them any time soon, he can see it in the way she's refused to meet anyone's eyes for the last twenty minutes.
So Taako leaves. He can't sit still, can't focus enough to be of use, can't help radiating anger and fear and nerves that he can tell put the others' teeth on edge.
Good. Now they understand exactly what he's been dealing with for days on end.
He'd gone back to the transport room for a while but staring out into the void of space reminded him too much of the Hunger. So Taako wanders.
Something pulls his feet through the winding halls and domed spheres of the Bureau, and Taako doesn't question it when he ends up at the Director's door. Everything seems to lead him back here these days.
He is surprised, however, to find Kravitz standing inside when Taako opens the door.
"Oh. Hey, babe."
Kravitz seems to restrain himself from pulling a face at Taako's lackluster greeting, but only just. He looks like he's been cleaning up in here; the ashes of the elf are gone, along with the rug. Taako hopes he didn't just vanish it into the ether. He's pretty sure it was a birthday present.
The desk is upright now, or at least what's left of it is. He watches, feeling strangely detached, as Kravitz throws a disgusted glance at Lucretia's dried blood on one corner and vanishes it in a puff of multicolored smoke. There's still stains on the floor where the blood soaked right through the carpet, though. Lucretia's portrait is still a ruin behind Kravitz's back, the one intact eye illuminated by the weak light pouring in the windows.
"Taako," Kravitz says, and then stops. He's looking down at his hands and Taako notices he's holding a scrap of parchment in one hand, probably something Lucretia wrote. He makes an abortive movement, as if to reach out as Taako moves closer, but stills. He doesn't look up. "How are you?"
Taako snorts and doesn't bother to answer. Kravitz has a pretty good idea anyway. They all do, now. "Why aren't you with Lup and Barry? Thought this whole soul search thing would be all reaper hands on deck."
Kravitz shrugs and Taako feels the heat of anger trying to rise in his throat-he loves Kravitz, so much, but Lucretia is gone, how can he shrug that off-until the reaper sighs and passes a hand over his mouth. "Searching for a soul without the intent to take it for the Raven Queen, without the orders that make people easier to find-it takes a certain connection to the person. Knowledge of who they are, what they feel, how they think. I don't know Lucretia enough, really, so I thought I'd give them privacy and head here. To, well." He gestures helplessly, one-handed, at the wreckage that was once Lucretia's sanctuary.
Something knotted and thorny unravels in Taako's chest. "To get to know who she is." He stops himself from saying "was," but only barely.
She's not dead. She's not dead. She's not dead.
Not yet, says a voice in his head and Taako wants to kill something. Violently.
"I want to help," Kravitz admits quietly. He allows Taako to tangle their fingers together, returning his desperate grip. "But I'm not sure how."
"You're helping me," Taako tells him sincerely. "Being here. You help me."
Kravitz's eyes go soft and he leans in to brush his lips over the corner of Taako's mouth. Even with his mouth tasting like ash, with Lucretia's blood on his clothes and his heart in his throat, Taako feels his stomach flip.
"What's that," Taako asks as his boyfriend leans back, nodding at the paper Kravitz is holding.
The other man flinches, just barely. Something in his face twists as he wavers. Taako reaches out and snatches the parchment from Kravitz before he can do anything else. His gut feels cold. Taako's thoughts swim like they're trapped in a fishbowl, confused and swarming. What could this be, what could be bad enough that Kravitz wants to hide it from him, what else could go wrong here?
But it's just- it's just a list of names. It's a list of their names. Lucretia's looping, precise scrawl in black ink stares innocently back at him as Taako reads the same nonsensical list over again.
Davenport
Lup
Magnus
Taako
Merle
Barry
Daniel
Bella
There's nothing else.
"What is this?" Taako mutters, rereading it again. "Davenport, Lup-who're Daniel and Bella?"
There's no answer. A warm palm clasps his shoulder, but the reaper doesn't answer him. Taako feels as if he might have the flu, chills and heat flashing alternately all over his skin. He feels sick, he feels angry and sad and his throat is so tight it feels like he may never be able to breathe again. What's happening to him? It's just a stupid list. There's not even anything to indicate what it's for. It's just a stupid list.
So why isn't Kravitz answering him?
When he looks up, the other man's eyes are lined with some emotion Taako can't bring himself to identify. "Who are Daniel and Bella?"
"I don't know, Taako."
"What is this? Why- why are you- why am I-" Taako clenches his hands around the paper, trembling. It's old, crinkled and worn like Lucretia had had it for a long time. Like she'd used it everyday, like she ran her fingers over the names again and again. It's soft, so close to tearing apart in Taako's fingers.
Fragile like Lucretia is.
"I'm not an accomplished empath, Taako." Kravitz says. He brings his other hand up to clasp both of Taako's shoulders, fingers digging into the knots of tension there. It's usually comforting.
Taako does not feel comforted.
"But?"
Kravitz hesitates. "Krav?" Taako asks, bleakly. It's just a list of names. Until it isn't anymore.
"But," Kravitz says with gravity Taako finds hard to swallow, "I'm here looking for things that will clue me into the emotions Lucretia has been feeling for a while now, things that will help me follow her thought pattern and single it out in this plane, anything that's tied so tightly to Lucretia that it would echo with her intentions even when she's long gone...And that paper is the strongest signal I could find here."
"In the office? She's got sleeping quarters, you should check there first-"
"In the entire Bureau, Taako." Kravitz shakes his head. Taako's eyes are blurring. Why? "There's a reason those names are on that paper. Lucretia was thinking of you guys, specifically, when she wrote that. She had a goal in mind, and it was steeped in grief and sorrow and a whole lot of self-hatred if the emotional echo we're both feeling right now is anything to go by. And I-I think you know what this is."
"She told me, when I opened the Rope Trick into a pocket dimension." Taako whispers. He can't look at Kravitz anymore, but he doesn't see the list of names when he looks down at the parchment in his hands. His eyes are too full to see clearly. "She said-that she couldn't understand why I wasn't, wasn't, wasn't-uh, wasn't taking the opportunity when it was right in front of me. She thought I'd-that I'd like to watch. When she. You know."
The ink runs when water hits the paper. Kravitz loops his arms around Taako's shoulders, loose enough Taako could pull away if he wanted to. But he doesn't. He doesn't do anything.
That's what he's good at these days.
"She thinks we hate her, Krav," Taako whispers, and it feels disgusting. He feels disgusting, dirty and soiled and ruined just like Lucretia's office is around him. Because he had hated her, hadn't he?
Hadn't he?
"It's a list of people she's willing to die for," he says and he hates himself for saying it but the words were burning cold in his heart, tearing at his mind, flaying him open unless he said them. They are right and true and terrible, and he could not contain them on his life. "It's a list of people Lucretia is willing to let kill her."
Kravitz hauls Taako against him. The paper is crushed in his fist as Taako claws at the back of Kravitz's cloak, gasping for air he finds thin. He can't see, can't think, can't feel anything but the emptiness in his lungs, his head, his heart.
"It'll be okay," Kravitz is saying from somewhere far away. "We'll find her. We'll bring Lucretia back home, Taako, I swear to you."
But Taako can't hear him over the rushing in his ears.
