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Three nights after Refuge, Merle opens his door to find Taako leaning on the frame. “Yo,” he says.
“Hey,” Merle says. He takes a couple steps back to let Taako into the room.
Taako ambles past him. “Smells awful in here,” he says.
“Least I don’t have to worry about tripping on laundry and snapping my neck,” Merle says.
“You’re not my dad,” Taako says, with no heat behind it. He plops himself down on Merle’s bed without asking. Merle tries a long-suffering sigh, but Taako either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, so Merle sits down on the floor. Without being asked, Taako passes him a lighter.
Sometimes Taako and Merle get high together. They don’t talk about it. There are plenty of things they don’t talk about, like how Taako is only five calendar years younger than Merle is. Or how sometimes Magnus isn’t invited. Mostly he is. Magnus is fucking hilarious when he’s stoned, as long as all fragile valuables have been removed from the room.
But Magnus is also not very good at maintaining companionable silence, which is where Taako and Merle fucking excel. Or, Merle calls it companionable. Taako calls it the silence of coworkers getting stoned together. Magnus tends to accidentally turn what should be a good-natured atmosphere into a vulnerable conversation; he shifts from giggling hysterically to asking melancholy questions about the world in ten seconds flat.
“You good?” Merle asks an indeterminate amount of time later. It’s already skirting the edge of too personal.
Taako takes a long drag. “Been worse,” he says. There is a long pause, and then, almost resentfully, he asks, “You?”
“Same,” Merle says. He takes the blunt back, begins to let himself relax against the bedframe before realizing how uncomfortable it is. “Scoot over, m’coming up.”
Taako barely moves from where he’s lying diagonally on the bed, which is how Merle ends up with his head sort of propped on Taako’s leg. It’s still more comfortable than the floor.
“Think we’d get in trouble if the Director found us?” Merle asks.
Taako snorts. He laughs more when he’s high, even if it doesn’t sound as much like him. “She should join us! Lucretia seems like she could use some of Pan’s blessings, if you know what I mean.”
Merle tries to remember if he’s given Lucretia his spiel on converting to Pan. He feels like he has, but he isn’t even sure if she worships a god.
“And I bet the Director wouldn’t talk ,” Taako adds pointedly, or as pointedly as he can in his present state.
“Ah, sorry,” Merle says. He’s long past being impressed by Taako’s aloof attitude, but he thinks this might be important in a different way. In lucid moments, he’s sometimes proud that Taako lets him be here for him, even if it is just because weed is hard to grow on the moon without Panly connections.
Taako sighs. “Nah,” he says. “We’re good.” And Merle feels like it’s maybe kind of true.