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It's just after Kravitz's 20th birthday when he moves to the cabin. It's secluded, situated in the middle of a huge forest filled with pine trees, that produce plenty of fresh air and ozone, which are supposedly going to make his lungs get better.
Kravitz has his doubts, or has he just turned cynical? But his siblings had jumped at the chance to save their little brother, or at least prolong his life, and purchased the cabin. And their family has nothing if not wealth to throw around towards hopeless endeavors.
The cabin, Kravitz's new house, is simple. A weathered red color on the outside, bare wooden walls on the inside. Only three small rooms, sparsely decorated but containing the essentials. It's not suitable for year-round living, but now in the summer, it's nice enough. The roof is partially covered in moss, and there's a bird's nest in the upper left corner of the porch; Kravitz had smiled to see it, the first time.
Kravitz likes it, likes being outside. Back home his world was his room on the second floor of the mansion; everything outside of it might've as well not existed. But here he has everything to himself. The house is his, the unkempt garden, overtaken by wild roses and weeds, is his and he can go anywhere he wants. There is no one to stop him from doing what he wishes to, to prevent him from exerting himself and straining his lungs. He is alone but he doesn't feel particularly lonely.
Kravitz plays his violin, reads books in his bed on the days when he's too tired to get up and writes letters to the twins assuring them that he has been coughing less and less. It is a lie of course, but he wants to make them feel hopeful while he has already resigned himself to perishing at a young age.
He will never be a conductor but he has come to accept it.
***
A servant stops by every two weeks with supplies, and the twins send Kravitz money to hire a doctor to come and see him regularly. There is one in the nearby village, they tell him via letter and Kravitz promises to contact the doctor but he never does. It wouldn't make any difference, he knows it. So he lies some more in his letters, writes that the doctor that doesn't exist had told him he is making progress and healing well.
Kravitz names his imaginary physician Doctor Highchurch and sometimes when he's too tired to get up, to eat or even sleep, he amuses himself by imagining what he'd look like. Short and stout, with flowers in his beard, Kravitz thinks during one of his fits of delirium, and for some reason, that image sticks.
***
There's a pond, surrounded by reeds and fringed by wetland near the house, with a little old wooden pier on it and Kravitz sits there sometimes when the day is sunny and warm, and the sounds of crickets and songbirds are just short of deafening. Dragonflies play above the water and despite the smell of stale water and decaying pond plants it really is quite picturesque.
Water lilies bloom on the surface of the pond and Kravitz knows what that means, even if he doesn't quite believe it. But he remembers, back when he was young and not yet so sick, how he'd been running outside after his sister and brother, peeking into wells, playing near river beds and getting chastised for it all.
There are creatures living underneath the surface, their nanny had told them. Creatures that lure people, especially children, into the water and drown them. The twins had laughed, old enough to think that they know better, that they recognize an old wives' tale when they hear it, but Kravitz had hidden the knowledge in his heart, he had decided to remember. The lilies are the creature's garden, he makes them bloom like roses.
***
Kravitz has been living alone for a month when he returns to his cabin from his walk in the woods and sees something unexpected in the water.
The day is warm, and if not for the slight breeze playing in the trees and grass it would be sweltering. The smell of pine is thick and heady, and it had hit Kravitz in the face as soon as he stepped out of his house that morning. It had forced a smile onto his face and he had felt good, better than he had felt in a long time. He had decided to go for a walk, just to enjoy the day.
But now that Kravitz has returned, he thinks he might've gone insane without realizing it.
There's a naked man standing in the pond, brushing out his long hair with spindly fingers. Kravitz stops and stares, and as he does he realizes that what he's seeing is looking decisively non-human.
He is pale, with a slimy sheen to his skin that reminds Kravitz of a fish's scales. His hair is blond, tinted dirty with green and it cascades down his skinny shoulders and back like a waterfall, pooling on the surface of the water and seemingly becoming one with the liquid.
Kravitz takes a sudden breath against his will, too sharp, and it makes him grab his chest and cough. The creature swivels around, his pointed ears pricking up and he looks at Kravitz; stares at him unblinkingly.
His monochromatic eyes are the darkest green, almost black, like bottomless pools of water. The hands still holding his hair are webbed, and though Kravitz can't see, his feet must be too.
He is the most beautiful creature Kravitz has ever seen, and he understands that the thought must show on his face because the creature tilts his head at him, with a smile that goes too wide and a mouthful of sharp teeth.
"Wanna dip in for a swim, handsome?" he hisses at Kravitz, forked tongue flickering between his lips, teasing and somehow charming despite his monstrous appearance. He turns around fully to face Kravitz, who immediately averts his eyes because whatever it is that he is now facing, man or creature, is definitely very much naked. He looks mostly like a human man, from what Kravitz had managed to see, and he curses himself for the flush that spreads on his face and coughs awkwardly, to get rid of any unbidden thoughts.
"I know what you are. I have no desire to drown." Kravitz says, still looking away. The creature laughs at that, short and high-pitched and then with a splash of water, he is gone. Kravitz goes inside, refusing to look at the water and slams the door behind him, hard enough that the flimsy windows rattle in their frames. He feels childish and petty for it but felt like he needed to make some kind of a statement. And he might've imagined it but he thinks he heard the laugh again as the door shut.
***
The next day, the pond is seemingly empty. But the day after, and the day after that, the creature is back. He keeps throwing quips at Kravitz, half-hearted attempts to lure him into the water but Kravitz shrugs him off every time, which the blond always seems to find amusing.
After a while, they start talking and having actual conversations. Kravitz admits to himself that it's nice to talk with someone, even if that someone is a water-dwelling monster known for dragging people under to kill them, or whatever it is that their kind do.
Kravitz learns that the creature doesn't have a name, because he never had a need for one, handsome, so Kravitz names him Taako, after a character in a book he is reading. Taako seems to like it fine, purring you can call me anything you want, darling, so it sticks.
Having Taako for company doesn't really change Kravitz's routine, except maybe he spends a little more time outside, now that he has someone to sit and talk with. On warm days, Kravitz sits on the small pier, just like before.
The only difference is that now, when he dips his feet into the cool water below, Taako will eventually appear with a teasing tug to Kravitz's ankles, as if he's going to pull him in. By now they both know he won't, though.
One time, Kravitz brings his violin with him.
"Play me a song, handsome?" says Taako sweetly, leaning on the pier with his head propped on his crossed arms. He looks up at Kravitz, playing coy, and it's very much working, Kravitz realizes to his chagrin.
"I've told you, it's Kravitz."
"Play me a song, Kravitz? " says Taako, with a teasing lilt to his voice that makes Kravitz smile and raise a questioning eyebrow at him.
"I thought instruments were a thing with your kind? Luring people to their deaths with beautiful songs and all that. Why not play yourself?"
"No need, when I got you serenading me, yeah?" Taako says and leans back in the water to raise up a foot and playfully wiggle his webbed toes at Kravitz.
Kravitz shakes his head at Taako, a fond but long-suffering smile on his face, but then he sets the violin under his chin and plays anyway. Taako seems to enjoy it, listening with a tilt of his head, his eyes set on the nimble movement of Kravitz's fingers.
***
Taako doesn't ever ask what Kravitz is doing or why, living alone in the middle of nowhere, but he has probably figured it out, Kravitz thinks, as he feels himself very slowly fading.
Sometimes there are worse days, and then there are the worst days when Kravitz can't muster up the strength to leave his bed. Days when he is unable to do much else than waste away underneath his sheets, thinking every time that this will be it, and finding himself, strangely enough, wishing he would have had more time after all, that he would have had time to say goodbye to Taako, who has become so important to him, against all of the odds.
But Taako cannot leave the water.
***
It has been a series of the worst kind of days, the longest he has been bed-ridden since he and Taako became acquainted. But eventually, Kravitz manages to get up, to drink some water, eat a little something and then he's stepping out, to take a fresh breath. To see Taako.
Taako appears with a loud splash, hanging onto the end of the pier as Kravitz steps on it. He feels something like guilt, settling heavily into the pit of his stomach as he sees the alarm on Taako's face, though it's quickly dissolving. Kravitz realizes that Taako must've thought that he had finally kicked the bucket.
The day is reasonably warm but the wind makes Kravitz shiver as he sits down at his usual spot. Taako moves into his space, cages Kravitz in with his arms, wet palms and water droplets from his hair seeping into the wooden planks below.
"I got something for you."
"What is it?" Kravitz rasps, his voice rough from disuse and all the coughing he has done for the last three days.
"Close your eyes," Taako says, and Kravitz pulls back slightly, squinting suspiciously, but still good-natured, teasing. "Are you trying to trick me into the water?"
"So suspicious, handsome," says Taako, soft and gentle with a small smile on his face and Kravitz decides to instill that image to the inside of his eyelids, as he closes his eyes. "You know I never learned how to swim," he says, just to get the last word in.
He hears Taako move around in the water, and then there is a pressure on one of his thighs as Taako braces himself against it to reach up with his other hand. There's a touch of lukewarm fingers on his skin as they brush his hair back and tuck something cold and wet behind his ear.
Kravitz doesn't open his eyes but he raises a brow in question and he hears Taako let out a little laugh. Those fingers brush against his cheek too, so briefly that later he thinks he might have imagined it. He feels Taako leave his space, the weight is off his thigh and Taako says, "You can look, now."
Kravitz opens his eyes, and Taako ducks under the water, hiding his face so that Kravitz can't see him smile, though he can tell anyway. Kravitz reaches up to touch his head, peering down at the water at the same time to see his reflection. There's a water lily behind his ear, pure white and bright, with a center as yellow as the sun.
Taako emerges again from the water, just high enough to say "Well, aren't you pretty," with a proud smirk on his face. Kravitz smiles back, pleased by the gift.
"Thank you, Taako."
He sets his hand on his thigh, over the damp spot on the fabric of his trousers, where Taako's hand had been, and wishes, to his surprise, for more time. More time to spend with Taako, this miraculous creature, more time to laugh with him, and to play his violin for him, in the way that he's never played for anyone else.
Kravitz finds himself wishing for more chances, thinking that eventually, given enough time, he would have been brave enough to reach for Taako and hold his hand in his own.
The breeze passes over the pond again and Kravitz shivers, again. His fingers curl into a fist. Time. Time is something that he never would've thought he'd find himself lacking. He had been so ready to let go of life. Taako had changed that, changed everything.
***
The twins visit, sometime later. Taako stays hidden the entire time of course, as Kravitz's siblings waltz around the premises, all decked out in bright colors and gaudy jewelry, talking loudly the entire time, as is their way. They stay for a few days, keeping up a happy atmosphere even though Kravitz can hear both of them crying in the night, when he's supposedly asleep but is in actuality sweating and taking shallow breaths, feverish.
When they leave, as Kravitz waves their wagon goodbye, he sighs in relief and holds his palm over his aching abs, sore from fighting to keep in all the coughing to avoid raising alarm. He isn't getting better but for his siblings, he pretends he isn't getting worse.
Kravitz doesn't want to leave, doesn't want to go back to the place that used to be home. If the twins knew how he was really doing, they'd take him home by force. He turns to walk back towards the cabin but he doesn't get far before his body is wracked with coughs as if his lungs are just now catching up on the slack of the past days. He falls down on his knees to the ground, curling up on himself as he hacks out his lungs, it feels like.
Kravitz opens his eyes, watery from the pain and sees specks of blood on the dirt beneath. He swallows thickly and looks towards the water. Taako is nowhere to be seen but there's a ripple on the surface of the pond and Kravitz knows that Taako was there, that he saw.
He shuffles into the house, gets himself a glass of water and passes out on his bed right after, exhausted.
It's late when he wakes, but he goes out anyway because during the summer the nights aren't so dark, more blue than black, and he sees Taako waiting for him at the end of the pier as usual.
"I don't like your family," he says, as Kravitz gets close enough.
"Jealous?" Kravitz croaks, trying to laugh, then coughs, and coughs some more. Taako waits until it's over, until Kravitz has gotten himself back together before he speaks.
"Maybe a little." He says, and smiles that smile of his that shows way too many sharp teeth and something that Kravitz used to think was fear, tugs at his stomach, but now he is starting to think, or more like, he has come to accept, that it's something else entirely.
The next day, Kravitz picks some flowers. Different colors, shapes, and sizes. He moves around the overgrown garden, taking pleasure in the way the plants fight each other for space and sunlight. It's different and somehow more satisfying, looking at something that is molded by nature itself, instead of the hands of men.
He twines the flowers together in the way his sister taught him, a lifetime ago, it feels like. He brings the finished product over to Taako, who looks up at him puzzled, and Kravitz thinks that he would be blinking dumbly if he had eyelids.
"What's this?" says Taako, and Kravitz grins at him, proud of his handiwork. "It's a flower crown."
"A what?" Taako frowns, but Kravitz just waves him over. Taako floats to the pier and grabs the edge of it, long nails digging into the worn wood. Kravitz leans down to set the wreath on Taako's head, saying, "Take a look."
Taako moves away and stands up a bit, to better see his reflection in the water. He smiles, suddenly, as if surprised, and then he's tilting his head this way and that, looking at his reflection, preening. Kravitz smiles, just to himself, because Taako is too busy admiring his new look. After a moment, he snaps out of it and beams at Kravitz, who feels that tug in his insides again.
"Thanks, handsome."
"It's Kravitz."
"Kravitz," mocks Taako, and swings his arm to splash water at him. Kravitz considers his apology accepted.
***
The weather starts to get colder, after that. Without Kravitz noticing, summer had turned into autumn and winter is fast approaching.
Kravitz writes to his sister and brother. He assures them that it is still warm enough and that he can survive another month in the cabin. That there is enough food when he hasn't had an appetite for ages.
He doesn't tell them that he is coughing up slimy chunks of something, and specks of blood that he carefully hides in tissues that he later throws into the fire of the hearth.
There aren't many good days, healthwise, and it's too cold for him to go outside most of the time. Kravitz warms his icy fingers on the ceramic of his teacup. He watches Taako who, undeterred by the cold water, stands in the pond and run his fingers through his hair, just like the first day he saw him, Kravitz waves at him from his bedroom window, but Taako doesn't notice him through the glass.
It is in that very moment, as the figurative rift between their different worlds is turned physical, when Kravitz understands that whatever it is that the two of them have, what they share, was never meant to be. That the summer they spent together, the best summer Kravitz had ever had, was all the time they were meant to have.
***
Kravitz gets steadily worse until he decides that he has had enough. He refuses to spend the rest of his time, as short as it might be, withering away slowly inside the house. He writes his goodbye letter to his siblings, thanking them for everything, and leaves it on his desk.
Kravitz puts on his best clothes, his black suit; the one he was planning to be buried in, that he had brought with him in secret. He walks outside and closes the door behind him, out of a sense of diligence more than anything else. He brought his violin with him and he sets it down on the pier. Taako never explicitly stated if he was familiar with the instrument or not, but Kravitz hopes he will hold on to it anyway. To treasure a memory, if nothing else.
Taako is waiting for him, in the water, his expression solemn. He has somehow fashioned a flower crown out of water lilies, which definitely shouldn't be blooming at this time of year, and he silently presses it to Kravitz's locks, after he wades through the freezing water to stand before Taako. The water comes up to their waists. Kravitz's clothes are soaked through and the cold is making his joints ache.
Kravitz looks at Taako and feels like he should say something because he knows Taako won't, but then again, there really isn't anything left to say. Or more like, there will never be enough time to say all the things he wants to say. He tries to smile, but it's a small and brittle thing. Taako's smile is much the same.
Kravitz goes for a swim for the first and last time, as Taako holds his hands and leads him deeper into the water.