Chapter Text
“Idiots, the lot of them,” Taako snorts. Even though he and Kravitz are seated next to each other in front of a booth, both nursing margaritas (at Merle’s behest, and for his kind offer to pay for them), his legs are kicked up over Kravitz’s lap as he surveys the scene. A hearty slap from Magnus’s friend Carey rouses him, if only for just long enough to whine about how proud he is and how his little boy is all grown up now before passing out on his wife’s shoulder.
“They’re proud.” Kravitz takes a sip of his drink, a small smile creeping over his face as he pointedly does not look at Taako. “So are you, I think.”
Taako splutters. “I am not! I’m not — no, fuck that, I don’t give a shit about the kiddo.”
“That’s why you give him free lessons, then.”
Taako gives a haughty sniff, leaning back against the cushioned seat. “Money ain’t even a thing. Our old man’s fuckin’ rich or something, and ever since he so generously stole us off the streets we haven’t worried about — about, uh, funds and all that.”
“Yet you ask me to haggle down the price every single time we go shopping.”
“No, that’s different,” Taako says, kicking his legs higher on Kravitz’s lap. “That’s ‘cause the bullshit we find is all, uh, that’s fuckin’ marked up like hell and that’s just — it’s an injustice, you know? A slight against our Lady Liberty with her, fuckin’, torch and everything. You shouldn’t have to kick out a hundred dollars for a pair of boots, right? Unless they’ve touched, I dunno, the gross and smelly feet of Billy Armstrong or something.”
“But if money isn’t a concern for you, you could haggle it down yourself. What are the repercussions of another fifty dollars? It’s a good learning experience!”
“‘Cause I don’t wanna ask the old geezer for fifty extra bucks,” Taako sniffs, then brandishes his drink at Kravitz. “‘Sides, when am I ever gonna go shopping not with you? Lup and Barry go to the, fuckin’, Gap to get their clothes, and Magnus and Jules wouldn’t know a department store if it hit ‘em over their head and let’s be honest here, where is Merle gonna find his floral shirts in the middle of a Macy’s? He isn’t, that’s where.”
“You’re taking advantage of my silver tongue,” Kravitz grins.
“I — okay, yes.” Taako takes a long swig of his drink. “Maybe a little.”
“Maybe next time I should let you go on your own,” Kravitz teases. “See how you like trying to stack up against a Nordstrom’s representative in their ugly uniforms.”
“Absolutely not, I refuse to be seen in public shopping at Nordstroms without someone in at least a suit. Besides, their employees need to shape up and work somewhere else, because bright orange? Really? I wanna know what chump thought a bright orange uniform was a good idea and punch them in the face. Directly in the nose.”
“You know, you could wear the suit. I think you’d look good in one.”
“Fuck off.”
“No, really!”
Taako glares at him. “Perish the thought, bone boy, the day you catch Taako in something as boring as a suit is the day Lup’s finally snapped and burned my Maxi collection, which is to say the day both of us just beef it.”
“Oh, so you think my fashion taste is boring?” Kravitz gripes, faux-wounded, hand over his heart and everything. “Gosh, how could I ever recover from such a grievous insult?”
“Gosh,” Taako snorts. “I can’t believe you say shit like — like gosh and goodness.”
Kravitz shrugs, dropping the wounded front in favor of a grin. “It’s better than my accents, at least.”
Taako chokes on his drink, waving his hand in the air. “Do not even speak of those,” he says, laughing. “Those were awful, you were, what, twelve? Thinkin’ you could do an Australian accent!”
“Hey, my accents weren’t too bad! My Cockney was pretty good.”
“Your Cockney was the absolute worst of the lot,” Taako groans, as Kravitz knew he would. “We were in — fuckin’, middle school, and you were walkin’ around in a tiny tailored suit like pip pip cheerio in the most abominable accent. You’re — you know, you’re real lucky I decided to hang out with you, Kravitz. Got you back on the straight and narrow.”
Kravitz hums. “I think you butchered that first part, my man,” he says, dipping back into his fake accent.
Taako cuffs his ear. “One, that was an awful joke and you should be ashamed. Two, I refuse to be seen with you in public doing accents, I refuse. You do that again and I’m leaving, Taako is out.”
“Oh, are you really?” Kravitz drawls. “Now I think it’d be rather rude for you to just dip on me like that, dearest. Who do you expect to cover your drink?”
“Dearest,” Taako mimics, rolling his eyes behind his glass. “You’re disgusting.”
“And yet here you are,” Kravitz says, “ten years later.”
“It’s for the bargains. I wouldn’t get those discounts if I didn’t drag you with me.”
“I’m being used for my financial prowess,” Kravitz says mournfully. “You wound me, Taako Taaco. And here I was, thinking we were friends.”
“Don’t get used to it.” Taako slumps down farther in his seat, heels kicking against Kravitz’s thighs. “I thought we were too, and then you got on stage for, fuckin’ — who were you, Grant-someone-or-other, way back in middle school, and you did that awful accent, who was that?”
“Graintaire,” Kravitz supplies. He’d done an awful French accent. So bad that Taako threatened to Sharpie a mustache on his face and Lup had actually done it. “Les Miserables, Taako. We’ve only seen that movie about a hundred times.”
“It’s just jabber-jabber-revolution-thrust-die,” Taako says. “And that one guy spitting up petals, like, come on. The last time we watched I counted the number — the number of times they, uh, compared his little rose petals to the color of blood, and you know what I got?”
Thirty-seven, Kravitz thinks, right before Taako reports the same number. “Which is to say just, too many.”
“It was a sad scene, Taako.”
“Oh, sure, if you’re a hopeless romantic,” Taako snorts.
“You cried the first time we watched it.”
“I was fourteen!”
“And bawling like a child half your age,” Kravitz grins.
Taako takes a sip. “That was back when I thought something like he had could ever happen to me.”
Though Kravitz is used to his seemingly-random bursts of crippling honesty, this one still takes him off-guard. He knows better than to dig deeper, he knows better than to appear pitying, or react at all, really; but he can’t help himself from asking, “You don’t think you’ll find love eventually?”
“Yeah, perish the thought, I know,” Taako says, averting his gaze. He elbows Kravitz in the shoulder. “‘Specially for you, you, like — bleed romance novels and whatever. Trashy dime-a-dozen novels, I can’t believe you.”
“They were a dime back in the nineteenth century, Taako, they’re hardly so cheap now.”
“Which just means they’re an actual — an actual investment, which also means you should be ashamed. But um, Lup — she found Barry, and Mags has Jules, and once Merle wrapped up the whole thing with Dav’s dandelions they, uh…they put a ring on that and everything, and I figure there’s only so much love in the universe, y’know?” Taako takes a steady sip of his drink. His hands don’t even shake. Kravitz envies him, for a moment; that his hands don’t tremble, and don’t give him away.
Kravitz folds his own carefully beneath the table. “And even if that means ol’ Taako doesn’t get his slice of the apple pie, or cherry, or whatever flavor that pie is, then that’s fine by me. There are people who, uh, deserve it more, so.” Another sip. “I’m glad the universe is investing, fuckin’, flour and yeast and apple preserves or whatever in them.”
“I think you deserve it,” Kravitz says. He wants to reach for Taako’s hand, wants to fold those slim, cooking-calloused fingers in his own. He does not. “I don’t think there’s a finite amount of love, Taako. I think everyone loves and is loved in turn, and the lucky ones — well, for the lucky ones, it goes both ways.”
Taako watches him for a long, long time. Panic mounts in his throat — did he give himself away? Did he say too much? He’s at the point of spilling red wine all over his pants and that would be inconvenient, he just pressed these slacks yesterday, until Taako looks away. “Figures,” he snorts derisively. “You want a happy ending for everyone.”
“To the birthday boy!” Julia roars, so loudly that the whole bar turns and looks at her.
“It’s not my birthday, ma’am,” Angus says politely from his seat between her and her husband. At some point, when Kravitz wasn’t watching, he’d wedged himself between his adoptive parents. “I’m graduating tomorrow.”
“To the graduating birthday boy!”Julia says, equally as enthusiastic, and Angus rolls his eyes at the same time Kravitz does, because she knows it’s not Angus’s birthday but, at the point before weepy-drunkenness, this is her sense of humor. To both of their chagrin.
“To Angus,” Kravitz grins.
“To my magic boy,” Taako says, the picture of disgruntled complacency, and clicks his glass to Kravitz’s.
“So I am your magic boy!” a voice pipes from beneath their table. Or at least, Kravitz thinks it’s beneath their table until he looks over and catches two eyes peeping up at them. “You’re a dirty liar, sir!”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You certainly did!”
“Nothing you can prove in court, bubbeleh,” Taako says, and ruffles Angus’s hair. “You trip on the stage and I’m disowning you.”
“You’re not my legal guardian, sir. There’s nothing for you to disown.”
Taako places a hand on his chest. “As your uncle I am deeply wounded.”
“You’re full of horseshit, sir. Hello, Mr. Kravitz.”
“Hello, Angus,” Kravitz says. “Enjoying the celebration?”
“Very much so! Except I know it’s not a celebration because this is a bar and bars are for people over 21 years old, which I am not. Also I found the receipt for my cake in the trash can because Magnus forgot to take it out so I know there’s a real party for little boys tomorrow. Probably at your house.” Angus hops up on the seat next to him and peers at his drink. “Merle’s paying for those, isn’t he?”
“You’re an awful little boy, Agnes.”
“I learned from the best, sir.”
“Do at least act surprised,” Kravitz asks. “Magnus and Julia are very excited. They tell us you’ve never had a surprise birthday party before.”
“I think here is where I should say that that’s only because I’m too smart for people to pull surprises on me, but we both know that’s not true.” Kravitz’s heart twinges sympathetically — Angus’s grandfather could kindly be called distant, and the orphanage was understaffed at the best of times. “Anyway, I’m really looking forward to it! I think Julia is getting me a recording device that I can wear in my ear for whenever I need to be a sneaky little boy, and I’m pretty sure Magnus is getting me a duck.”
“Who knows, bubbeleh, this could be the year he gets you something else.”
“Oh no, it’s fine, I love them. I’ll add it to my collection. He gave my last one a little spyglass to look like me.” Angus pats Kravitz’s shoulder and hops down from the bench. “I’ll see you both tomorrow, I think. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Mr. Kravitz!”
“What about me?” Taako calls after Angus’s retreating back, then slumps back on the bench, looking distinctly miffed. Kravitz doesn’t bother muffling his chuckles in his sleeve.
“You’ve been thoroughly outwitted by a twelve year old boy.”
“You mean we have,” Taako snarks. “Joint planning effort, my dude.”
“You just sniped at Magnus and Jules until they let you cater.”
“I will not have my magic boy eating third-rate catering for his graduation party,” Taako sniffs. “That’s a disgrace to the Taako name.”
“They’re professionals, Taako. You’re not out of culinary school yet.”
“Yet I could cook any one of their asses under the table.”
Kravitz laughs, then clears his throat as it begins to itch. “I’m still waiting to see you cook off with Gordon Ramsay, you know.”
“Oh?” Taako cocks an eyebrow at him. “Who would your money be on, then?”
“If I didn’t care about winning? You.”
Taako yelps indignantly at him, sending him into further fits of laughter that break into coughs. The coughs don’t stop, and don’t stop, and his throat begins to prickle, tracing a line of embers up his throat.
He stumbles out from the table, waving off Taako’s worried inquiries, and hurries to the bathroom, one hand stuffed over his mouth. Gods, these fits always pick the least convenient times — thankfully he’s not often with Taako for one of these, but when he is, he always has to think on his feet to explain why he’s taking off in such a hurry. He’d never appreciated improv classes more than that moment in junior year when he’d sprinted out of a chemistry test to retch petals into his palm.
He locks himself in a stall and doubles over, stomach cramping. His frame shakes with coughs, as he struggles to tear a path through the bristling flowers rooted in his windpipe.
A lull, a thin opening and he slumps against the wall of the stall, spent. He tries to swallow and convulses, retching.
“Kravitz?”
Kravitz tries to warn him away and and regrets it immediately, on his knees as petals spill from his mouth, tickling along the top of his mouth and cutting at his lips. He clamps both hands over his mouth, trying to muffle the sound of his own choking and failing. He’s shaking already, and distantly fear grips him; it’s never been this bad before, he can count the petals in the dozens when in the beginning there was only one, a single fluttering petal he could catch in his hand before anyone saw, but this —
Footsteps approach his stall. “Krav, you okay?”
Panic lurches sharp in his stomach. “Fine — ” he gasps, fighting for air. “‘m fine — pneumonia — ”
“Again?” Taako asks, a touch of sympathy in his voice. Ten years ago Kravitz wouldn’t have recognized it but he does now, the sympathetic pain in his voice. He’d thought Taako unfeeling, back in junior high. “Jeez, Krav, your immune system’s really fucking you over, it’s been, what, three years now?”
“Just about,” he says, words catching painfully in his throat.
“Need anything?”
“Water,” he rasps, because he will, soon.
“Okay. Be right back.”
The door opens, and shuts, and Kravitz inhales carefully. When the petals stay stagnant, no tickling itch in his windpipe, he sits back against the stall, eyes fluttering closed. He needs to gather this up, all the petals, in the pocket he sewed just for this, but first he just — he needs a moment. His head is spinning and his heartbeat is pounding in his ears, but he narrows his focus to the slow drag of breath in his throat — in and out, in and out, a tempo of his own making, unravelled by his own heart.
He scrubs his mouth with the back of one shaking hand, sighs when it comes away streaked thinly with blood. He’s too drained for proper swearing.
Kravitz gathers the petals as best he can, careful not to miss any — doubtless the bar wouldn’t appreciate stumbling upon an explosion of petals — and tucks them in the inside pocket of his jacket just as the bathroom door opens again.
“Still in here?”
“Yeah,” Kravitz says and, patting his pocket to ensure the petals are securely out of sight, steps from the stall.
“You look like hell,” Taako says, and hands him a cup of water. “Shouldn’t you be, I dunno, takin’ meds for that or something?”
“Already am.” Kravitz knocks it all back in one go, eyes slipping shut at the relief in his throat. “Thanks.”
Taako takes the cup back, looking not quite at Kravitz’s eyes but down, at his lips. Kravitz has dreamed about this, granted, but under much different circumstances. “You’re shaking,” he says.
“Vomiting blood isn’t easy, you know,” Kravitz grins wryly. He tries to take a step forward and sways, head spinning. He braces himself on the sink. “Sorry, just give me a second — ”
“Here.” Taako slips an arm beneath his shoulder and tugs Kravitz close to him. “And don’t apologize for that, you idiot.”
The two of them slide back into their seats, their margaritas untouched where they were sitting. Kravitz sinks back into the cushions gratefully, letting his head fall back against the seat.
For a few moments there’s blissful silence. When Kravitz opens his eyes again he sees Taako watching him, a near-invisible note of concern in his gaze.
“Taako, I’m fine.”
Taako snorts, and the tension between them snaps. “Like hell you are.” He slides Kravitz’s drink closer to him. “You wanna go home?”
“No,” Kravitz says truthfully. “I can manage at least another hour, I think.”
Taako studies him for a beat, then shakes his head. “Lightweight. You always did knock out early.”
“Did not!”
“You absolutely did too, my man, do not give me that horseshit. You went to bed every night at eleven in freshman year.”
Kravitz pouts. “I was a freshman.”
“Yeah, but you were still you,” Taako says, and prods his chest. “Nerd.”
Maybe in a different world he’d take Taako’s hand, kiss the back of it. It’d make Taako laugh and splutter and turn him red all the way up to the tips of his ears.
Instead, here, in this world, Kravitz lets Taako’s finger fall from his chest — right above his heartbeat — without a word. And instead of a hundred other things, a would you like to get dinner with me tomorrow? or what time will you be home? or simply, I love you, Kravitz smiles and says, “Guilty as charged.”
They pass the next hour easily. It’s so easy to talk to Taako, and always has been, for Kravitz. The right questions and sympathy are rewarded with startlingly honest answers. Small things, like how his aunt’s roast turkey takes five hours to prepare and he’d made it for Lup, the day before her wedding, and complained to Kravitz the whole time because there was nothing for him to but sit and turn the roast; but big things too, like how neither Taako nor Lup can sleep in the dark, how they always curl back-to-back while napping, like how his gap teeth shine when he smiles and despite appearances he would do anything for the small family he’s crafted right in the heart of the city.
A few minutes before one he calls an Uber, and Taako walks him out into the brisk autumn evening. Taako’s face is the last he sees as he pulls away from the bar.