[TAZ] i know i like to draw that line when it starts to get too real

[monstertea]

The problem isn't that the kid is too young to walk himself home, it was the neighborhood. Taako doesn't live in the slums, but his neighborhood isn't really a place for kids to wander around alone, either. Especially a boy detective who does't know how to keep his nose out of other people's business. That's why he's stuck with the kid in the first place, or so he reminds himself when his brain starts to think too fondly of him.

He walks at a languid pace next to Angus, knowing but not acknowledging that he's in no hurry to go home. "You keep working on that mage hand," he says as they walk through a neighborhood much nicer than Taako's. "Just don't go trying anything fancy on your own, little dude." It's a historic area where buildings have been converted into homes and quickly filled by the hoity-toity type of people who like white picket fences and employ other people to take care of their homes. It's easily the nicest foster home Angus has been in yet. So Taako could have dropped him off at the corner, it isn't a neighborhood that sees trouble. He tries to avoid run-ins with Angus's family, but he always has an excuse to see him to his door. At least with this neighborhood he has the easy excuse that it's just interesting to look at the houses, to answer Angus about what each building used to be. Yeah, he knows shit, too. He's just trying to remind the kid that he isn't smarter than him, he's not trying to impress him.

Comments

[monstertea]

Taako whirls around, glad to be off the topic of food. "Bringing some color inside sounds great. You got a real sterile environment going on in here," he says as he steps back inside. He steps out of the way to let Kravitz ahead of him to lead the way to the other courtyard. "There a problem with being called bubbale?"

[solarisirius]

"I'm not the most gifted in interior design, I'll admit," Kravitz says a bit sheepishly as he leads the way to his office. "I haven't done much to change what the designers did, so it still feels a little spartan. The renovations just finished last month." Opening the door to his office, he heads over to the large floor to ceiling windows that dominate the back of the room. With a press of his fingers, there's a clicking noise, and one of the panes of glass slides slightly forward, and from where, he can push it aside to let them out into the smaller courtyard.

His office seems much more lived in than his living room, with bookshelves stuffed with all sorts of different literature and a large, solid, cherry wood desk and a warm looking leather chair behind it. His laptop is open on the desk, and there's an articulated skeleton wearing a top hat in the corner.

[monstertea]

"Should we do a consultation for interior design too?" Taako jokes as he follows Kravitz. "Though you can't really just design a place to look lived in..." He trails off as they enter the office and it's easy to guess Kravitz spends more time here than his living room. What a sad state of affairs.

Then he sees the skeleton.

"Woah boy! My buddy! My guy!" He goes straight for the skeleton, looking it over. It looks real and that should be weird but he's just too tickled. "Is this fella real?" His eyes are bright when he glances back at Kravitz, smile all mischief. "You got yourself a fancy bag of bones hanging out in your office? You gonna explain this one away real easy, too? Did the house come with a pre-fab skelefamily?"

[solarisirius]

"Maybe we could at least get it to look a little less sterile, which would be appreciated," Kravitz chuckles. "My sister says it looks too much like a sample home on FHGTV." It's embarrassing to know that Taako thinks the space doesn't look lived in, but that's because it really isn't. He doesn't have much of a life outside his job.

The elf's reaction to his skeleton tickles him pink, though, and he's not even trying how pleased he is. Although....maybe he should lie and say it's from a party store or something. In for a penny in for a pound and all that. "Yes, he's real, and actually, yes, he did come with the house," he answers honestly. "He was in one of the body drawers downstairs, and since he's part of the history of this morgue, I didn't feel right sending him anywhere else. So I articulated and gave him a place of honor in my office. What kind of man would I be if I kicked a fellow out of his own home?"

[monstertea]

"Of course that's the thing to do!" Taako howls with laughter, patting the skeleton's upper arm bone. He's thrilled that the skeleton is real and was in the house. It's gross and the fact that Kravitz articulated and kept the skeleton is even creepier and he's loving it. "That's just what you do, you find a skeleton in your new house, you just fix it right up and keep it around like some kinda Addams family roommate. That's like, house buying one-oh-one or whatever, right?"

He's reached up to take the top hat off the skeleton and put it on himself when something Kravitz says clicks in his mind. I articulated he had said, not that he had it articulated. "I don't think I ever asked what you do for a living."

[solarisirius]

"I cleaned it first," Kravitz says, his cheeks burning as he smiles nervously. Taako's laughter sounds delighted, not necessarily mean, but it's still not the reaction he was expecting. "That's the part they teach you in orientation, before you actually start house buying one-oh-one. If you find any skeletons in your house, absolutely clean and bleach the bones before you articulate them and display them in your office."

Fondly watching as Taako picks up the top hat from the skeleton (it had been part of a Halloween costume one year), it takes him a moment for the question to register. "I, ah. I own and run my family's mortuary."

[monstertea]

Taako is still laughing a little, delighted giggles escaping as he manages to balance the hat on his head without messing up his hair. "You're a mortician," he says, and he's trying for a deadpan voice but his laughter is ruining that. "I am so not even slightly surprised. Like, everything is coming together now. The morgue house, the skeleton." He's careful as he takes the skeleton's arm, draping it over his shoulder after turning to face Kravitz. "So I guess you could say all this," he says, motioning to the skeleton and the room, "runs in the family?"

[solarisirius]

"I suppose you could say that," Kravitz chuckles, starting to get tickled now the longer Taako laughs. "My family's mortuary has been here as long as the city has. It wasn't my intent to take over, but life happens. I also didn't intend to buy and live in a morgue, but it was the only building I was really interested in when I was looking at the market, so of course it would turn out to be a morgue and of course it would have a rather charming skeleton inside."

Seeing Taako with the skeleton's arm over his shoulder makes him smile even wider. "You can take a selfie with Jenkins, if you want, since you both look so dapper."

[monstertea]

Taako makes a noise of sheer delight when Kravitz says he can take a selfie with the skeleton. "Here you go, babe, you gotta have your hat back for this," Taako says as he leans up to perch the hat back on the skeleton's head. Even with his heels on, it's just tall enough for him to have to reach and it's only with years of practice that he doesn't stumble in his heels.

"So," he goes on while pulling his phone out of a skirt pocket that it only barely fits it, "do you at least like your job? I mean, I'd assume as much since you kind of totally have the whole mortician vibe going for you, but you know they say about assuming."

[solarisirius]

"A deadly pair," Kravitz compliments once the hat has been returned to Jenkins's head, extremely pleased that being allowed to take a selfie with the skeleton is taken to be the honor that it is. No one outside his family has actually even seen the thing, so to have Taako so pleased with it kind of makes him want to show him the unfinished basement in all it's creepy glory.

"It's a living, no joke intended," he says with a little shrug, taking a half step forward like he's concerned that Taako might fall going up on his tip-toes in his heels like that, but it appears like the elf has complete mastery over the deadly footwear. "I was actually going to be a musician, but my father passed, and I came back home to run the family business. I enjoy it well enough, there are certainly worse things I could have ended up doing."

[monstertea]

Taako steps just in front of the skeleton, holding both it's arms around his shoulders with one hand while he holds his phone up with the other, trying to find the right angle. He has to get a good photo because this one's going on all the social media. There's the tell-tale sound of the camera snap when he finally gets the angle he wants, and then he's letting go of the skeleton, still careful in his handling of it.

"That seriously fucking sucks," he says when he turns back around, his smile replaced with a somber expression. "Like, sure, it isn't the worst, but to lose someone and have to give up what you want to do at the same time is the pits."

[solarisirius]

As Kravitz watches the scene playing out in front of him, he wonders if it would be too forward to ask Taako to text him a copy of that picture. It probably says something slightly disturbing about him, but he finds it incredibly cute how the elf ends up posing, almost like he's standing with a high school boyfriend for a prom photo or something like that. Maybe he'll ask later, if he can gather the courage, because the last thing he wants is to make the other uncomfortable by giving him the impression that he might want the picture for anything other than fondness.

"Someone had to do it," he says, as if that's all the answer that the statement needs given. "I appreciate that, though. It wasn't an easy decision to make." And sometimes, it still isn't.

Before the mood can completely sour, he steps out into the smaller courtyard, motioning for Taako to follow him out.

[monstertea]

Taako is happy to let that topic fall, because hoo boy he does not do feelings. It sucks, and he sympathizes with Kravitz, but that is not a thing he talks about or thinks about any more than he can. Nope, he is ready to be all business again if that means avoiding that serious conversation.

"You sure there's no ghosts out here?" he asks once they're both outside. Much like the first, it's clear no one has done anything with the courtyards since the place was last used. He doesn't even care about nature like Merle does and he thinks it's a sorry sight. "Cause I am feeling all kinds of dead energy out here. I'm expecting your boy Jenkins to have a buddy start climbing out of the ground."

[solarisirius]

"Maybe the ghosts of the poor plants that were once out here," Kravitz says, looking a bit forlorn at the sorry state of his own courtyard. "They were in this state when I purchased this place, and my first priority was to make the main two floors livable before anything else, so unfortunately this had to take a back seat for the time being. If any of the neighborhood kids have seen these things, I'd understand why they think I'm a lich." Dead flowers, rotting plants, all that jazz, does not exactly make for an encouraging atmosphere.

[monstertea]

"Probably too late to stop those rumors at the school," Taako laughs as he looks at the space pensively. "But you can at least be a lich with a couple of nice gardens. Put some... put some life back into this place." His heart wants to go for a big, ostentatious center piece, but that's not Kravitz's style. "What do you want out here? Just something nice to look at and take care of? Just your typical garden, nothing particular in mind?"

[solarisirius]

"Kids," he sighs, shaking his head, but his tone is fond. There's probably worse things they could call him than a lich, and considering he owns a mortuary and lives in a morgue, well...it's understandable why they would think that. "Yeah, that's about it. I work from home a third of the time, and it'd be nice to have something visually appealing out there considering I share a glass wall with the thing. It's just damn depressing to be in here." He wrinkles his nose at the thought. "I'm open to suggestions, so long as it's pretty."

[monstertea]

"Not exactly the best view, no," he agrees. He'd have filled the place with lawn ornaments, but to each his own. Color, at least, was something everyone could agree was needed. Color was something Taako was thinking Kravitz needed in his life altogether. "I can give you pretty real easily. I'm thinking maybe some flowering vines, a fountain or small tree or maybe some kind of statue, like get a custom grim reaper made."

[solarisirius]

"A fountain would be nice," he says, warming up to that idea immediately. "And if not a fountain, a water feature in general would work just as well. Initially, I'd thought about a fountain of some kind, but I was worried about it maybe looking too tacky. If you think it would work, then I'm definitely happy to take your word for it." A smile tugs at his lips. "If we're going the fountain route, maybe a custom grim reaper who shoots water out the end of his scythe?"

[monstertea]

"Now you're catching on!" Taako gives an approving nod at the idea of the grim reaper fountain. "Don't wanna go the crying skull route if you're wanting to freak people out less, for sure. But no, yeah, a fountain would be great, just gotta get the right size. And not one of those tiered monstrosities people shouldn't be allowed to install at their homes, something subtle up against the wall, matching the brick."

[solarisirius]

"I'm not very fond of the tiered monstrosities myself, that's why I hesitated to bring up a fountain," Kravitz admits honestly. "I'm woefully uneducated in the design area, so I wasn't sure what other options there were. Something against the wall sounds perfect." They've been talking for a while, and Kravitz feels like he's being a bad host. "Can I get you something to drink? I have water and juice and I think some soda."

[monstertea]

You're always supposed to refuse these offers, Taako knows that much; it's as unprofessional as it can be dangerous. But he finds Kravitz as threatening as a puppy and he's already thrown professionalism to the wind long ago. "A drink would be fantastic, I feel like I haven't had a drink in days," he says, leading the way back inside without thinking about it. "I'll pick out some fountains to show you next time, find some that are tasteful as fuck."

[solarisirius]

"That sounds excellent, I'll be looking forward to it." Not only because it means he'll get to meet with Taako again, but he's genuinely excited at the prospect of getting all this started and under way. It's going to look so nice once the job is finished, he can already tell, and he plans to give Taako a pretty hefty budget to work with.

Once his offer is accepted, he intends to lead the way back to the kitchen, but Taako takes the head as they move inside, which he finds highly amusing. "Do you know where you're going?" he asks, arching an eyebrow as he follows.

[monstertea]

"No idea, my man, your office is just more welcoming than the courtyard god forsook out there," Taako answers. He's maybe feeling a little too at ease, because normally he's most comfortable meandering behind everyone else. He literally and metaphorically does not let other have his back. "Please," he says, gesturing widely with both arms. "Lead the way."

[solarisirius]

"I would have been kind of freaked out if you did know where you were going, since this is supposedly your first time here," Kravitz says, moving around Taako to take over the lead. There's a large arched doorway at the back of the living room that opens up into the kitchen and dining space. There's a large picture window where the table and chairs are situated, but most of the space is dominated by the literal restaurant-quality kitchen, all sleek metal appliances, warm granite counter tops, the best custom designed cabinetry that Fantasy IKEA had to offer, the whole work. It had cost a small fortune, but Istus made this delighted cooing noise every time she came in, and cooked dinner for him twice a week, so it was worth the investment in his opinion.

[monstertea]

"Can't say I'm not curious to wander around, see if you missed a skeleton or just have another one tucked away somewhere," Taako says. He opens his mouth to keep going but as they enter the kitchen he goes silent. For a moment, his mind just blanks out and he's walking into the kitchen with eyes wide. He looks like a kid in a candy store. "Shit, look at this place! Didn't skimp on a single thing in here!" All pretense of being a guest is lost as he studies the oven, the stove, runs his hands over the counter tops, barely contains himself from going through drawers to see what kind of cookware is stowed away. "I could get my fucking cook on for days in a kitchen like this!"