ango does a stabby
part one here
Taako takes a Mage Hand to the throat with a grimace, and on anyone else the irony would be delicious — student rising above the master, using his own spells against him, et cetera et fucking cetera — but Taako doesn’t really like dramatic irony when it works against him.
Behind him, Merle flips frantically through the pages of his Bible, soulwood fingers too clumsy, vision too blurry without his glasses. Magnus steps forward. Magnus gets buffeted back. It’d be funny if it weren’t sad. He keeps trying with dogged determination, except Angus pushes him away easily.
No. That — whatever it is, that Relic — isn’t Angus. It’s got him, for sure, but it isn’t him.
And just like Ango’s Mage Hand, Taako’s gonna test just how tight that grip is.
“C’mon, pumpkin,” he says, diverting a Whirlwind as it tears his hat off his head. He has to shout to make himself heard. “C’mon, Agnes, you in there?”
“Not anymore, sir! It’s a bit too late for this now!”
“You — you know they were just goofs, Ango,” he says, as soothingly as he knows how, and Magnus should be doing this, this is — like, this is his thing, but Magnus is about as magic-proof as a fuckin’ dung beetle and Merle’s never liked the kid anyway, so it’s all up to Taako. Again. “We were just goofing. I mean, we gave your books back, didn’t we?”
“It was really very easy, sir,” says Angus’s voice with Angus’s mouth, bright and cheery. He blasts Taako with Magic Missile and ha, real original, fuckso. He follows right up with a Fireball from one outstretched palm and Taako whips up his Umbrastaff, skirting the flames along its edges. Heat dances along his legs, shrivelling his skin, but he inches forward behind his makeshift shield. If he can just get to Angus, hug the kid, something….
Over the roar of the flames, it continues, “It didn’t take long at all for me to convince him he meant nothing! You three really were awful to him.”
Gods, this fucker even sounds like Angus. Taako wants to tell it to stop, command it to stop saying sir, deepen its voice — stop taking Angus’s voice — but shakes his head. Right now, he has to reach Angus.
“Look, I know we were shitty. We…we kinda are shitty, all of us. I mean, what kinda goofuses let a whole town blow up, y’know? Yeah. Real shitty. But we love you, kid. I mean that.”
“Sounds fake, sir,” Angus says, letting loose a lightning bolt. Taako shakes out his hand as electricity sparks up the handle, wincing. He’s so close. He peeks out from behind the Umbrastaff.
“You still in there, D’jango?” he asks. Magnus hits the wall and Taako winces sympathetically. There’s commotion as Merle rushes to heal him but Taako doesn’t hear it, focused entirely on Angus and the wand half-drawn at his side.
“That’s not gonna be enough, sir!” the voice chirps. “You did too much damage with your words already, you’re hardly going to sway him — ”
Angus chokes, doubles over. The winds dissipate, the fires around him dim. Taako steps the rest of the way toward him. This close, he’s breathing shallowly.
“Really?” he asks, broken, quiet.
Taako takes another cautious step forward, lowering his Umbrastaff. His arms are shaking. “Really, kiddo,” he says softly. One step; another, and another. Angus looks up at him, eyes huge and welling.
He’s shaking. They’re both shaking. Exertion, exhaustion, fear; maybe all three. Angus sniffs. “I’m so sorry,” he says, surveying the room, wrapping his arms around himself, shoulders hunched. “I — I didn’t mean, I know, I love you too, I just — I took the dagger and I just wanted to help….”
“Shh,” Taako says, and takes another step. Kneels. Opens his arms. “‘s okay, kiddo.”
“I just wanted to help,” Angus whispers, collapsing into Taako’s embrace, “I just — you and Magnus and Merle do it all the time, and I thought, maybe this time you wouldn’t have to, because I love you, I just — I’m so sorry — ”
“No harm done, kiddo,” Taako says, running a hand through his hair soothingly. “All sorts of forgiveness up in here tonight. Don’t even worry about it.”
“Oh thank goodness,” Angus says, still sniffing pathetically, and buries his face in Taako’s shoulder, and sinks the dagger into his back.
