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Angus McDonald needs to get Basil trained before he goes back to school. It won’t be difficult, she has most of it done already thanks to Magnus. But getting her used to her name and training her with the specifics of what he personally needs is what has to be done.
Magnus stops by with a clicker and a bag of dog treats one night. “She’ll learn quicker if you’ve got an immediate reward waiting for her. Now, I know it’s gonna be hard, because it’s always hard, but you can’t just give her treats whenever.”
“I won’t,” Angus says, taking the treats and the clicker from him. Basil sniffs at Magnus and woofs happily at him.
She stays very close to him constantly, resting her head on his legs when they’re sitting.
“Come here, Basil,” he says when he calls her over. Makes sure to call her by her name constantly.
“No nicknames yet,” he tells everyone else in the house. “She’ll get confused on what she’s actually called. It’s gotta be Basil.”
“Bubeleh, nicknames are part of the Taako charm,” Taako whines. “If I can’t call her stupid things that make no sense, then what’s even the point?”
He crosses his arms and stares at him. Taako stares right back, hands on his hips. “The point is that she knows what her name is.”
“You named your dog after an herb and you wanna talk to me about respecting name integrity?”
“It’s a good herb!” Angus argues back. “And besides, Basil feels like a good detective name. Not sure why, but it feels right. Just like she feels right. So until she’s got Basil down as her name, no nicknames.”
“Course, Mango,” Lup interrupts before her brother can start up a whole argument about herbs and why dogs shouldn’t be named after them. “But once she’s get her name all down, you know it’s nickname time.”
Angus sighs and feels his lips quirk up in the corners. “Obviously.”
Basil’s fast at learning her name. With everyone saying it so often when calling her or calling her good or asking her to do something, she’s quick to hurry over when her name gets called, head perking up in attention.
The second part of getting them both ready to go to school is what he specifically needs from her. He doesn’t really know his own tells, doesn’t notice himself doing them, and that’s the point. She needs to be able to pull him out of a bad spiral with non verbal cues. That means asking the others what exactly he does when he starts to get anxious and uncomfortable. What he does before or during a panic attack. What he does when he zones out completely and can’t understand what’s going on around him.
He’s absolutely terrified of asking that. It’s personal. All of them know, it’s not like he’s asking some stranger to tell him all his giveaways to his trauma, but that would almost be better. Someone so disconnected to his whole… situation.
Basil seems to pick up on some of his anxiety, whining quietly when he gets too lost in thought. He supposes that’s good, that she’s already picking up on the things he does and how to get him to stop doing them.
Angus doesn’t even know where he’d start with asking something like that. “Hey, you know how I have breakdowns sometimes? What weird stuff do I do right before that so I can tell my dog what to look out for?” That’s no good. Way to direct, way too open.
Who would he even start with? Deep in the pit of his stomach he doesn’t want Taako to know. He obviously knows it has to happen, but making Taako, who hates doing any kind of emotion, focus in on what Angus does when he starts panicking or losing his composure just seems cruel. Even letting him know that he needs to know those thing about himself feels like betrayal.
Reasonably, he knows this is a wild assumption to make. Taako’s sat with him through breakdowns and panic attacks since before he got kidnapped. He might find it uncomfortable, but only because of the context. Angus doesn’t want him to know this specific training is happening, even the he knows he probably already does, so he has to choose who he asks carefully.
Lup’s out immediately. While she can keep a secret, she’d deem this ‘Tell Taako’ worthy. Probably based on the assumption that him and Taako are closer, which might be true, but also makes this whole deal worse.
The next choice would be Barry, but him and Taako have this weird way of communicating through the dirt they tell each other, and while this wouldn’t count as dirt, it’d still end up getting told to him over morning coffee when everyone else is out of earshot. The two have so much leverage over each other that it would come out one way or another, probably much sooner than he’d like.
This leaves him with Kravitz. At first thought, an even worse choice than Barry. He’s dating him, they tell each other a lot. But Kravitz also spent an uncountable amount of time keeping tight lipped about things until they needed to be dealt with. He knows how to keep secrets, knows how to keep them well, and out of all of his choices he has the lowest chance of telling Taako.
Taako is out shopping for last minute dinner ingredients, Lup is on a call from the Raven Queen, and Barry is tucked away in his lab in the basement working on something dubiously legal when he asks.
Basil nudges her head against his leg, pushing him forward a bit, and Angus rubs his gloved hands together. “Um, Kravitz? Could I ask you a favor?”
He turns to look at him from the peppers and onions Taako had tasked him with chopping before he left, raising an eyebrow. “Depends on the favor, but probably yes.”
“I,” he chokes a little, closing his mouth and swallowing harshly. Kravitz frowns and puts the knife down, turning towards him fully. “I need, um, I need to train Basil fully before I go back to school and I—”
He can’t finish, mouth locking up again, he can feel his lungs spasm a bit. He tries to open his mouth to talk but nothing comes out. Basil butts her head against him again, and he looks down at her helplessly.
“Hey,” Kravitz says gently, still frowning. Angus wraps his arms around his middle, unsure of what to do. He can’t make himself talk, and now Kravitz is waiting expectantly. He looks ready to say something and then rethinks it, eyes lighting up. “Give me one moment.”
He leaves the kitchen and comes back quickly with a notebook and pen in hand. Angus stares. He’d never even thought of that. It’s rare that he can’t make himself talk, but he should have thought of just writing down what he wants to say.
“Here,” he says, handing it to him. “It might be a little easier to write it down.”
He flips it open and puts the pen to the paper. Basil sniffs at it curiously. Angus writes a little bit before scribbling it out, starting a new line. And then he does the same thing. And again. And he’s about to do it again but Kravitz places a hand on the paper.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” he says, and Angus reluctantly hands over the notebook.
“I need to know what my tells are for my anxiety and tr stuff so I can teach Basil how to stop it.”
Kravitz furrows his brows at this, reading it over a few times. He opens his mouth to say something but Angus pulls the notebook back.
“You CAN’T tell Taako about it.”
He frowns at this. “Angus—”
Angus shakes his head hard.
“Why… why don’t you want me to tell him?”
He’s handed the notebook back and Angus just stares at the blank page, pen gripped loosely in his hand. He’s not even sure how to write that down. “I don’t want him to” is all he gets down before he stops. He stares hard down at the words on the page, keeps his eyes locked on the same spot when Kravitz takes it from him again.
“Is it ‘feel guilty’ or ‘have to deal with it?””
“Both,” he hoarsely whispers out. He clams up right after, squeezing at his stomach. Kravitz sighs and hands the notebook back.
“He wouldn’t ‘have to deal with it.’ This is a thing we all need to work with, no one is just ‘dealing’ with you Angus.”
He doesn’t write anything, just stares down at the tiles. He can see Kravitz scrub at his face in his peripheral and squeezes his lips together.
“I’ll tell you what your tells are, and if you really don’t want me to tell Taako then I won’t. But he’ll be upset he wasn’t included when he finds out. You know you can’t keep this from him forever.”
The anxiety squeezing around his heart goes away and he looks up at him and smiles. “Thank you.”
“Help me chop up the rest of this stuff and I’ll tell you.”
Angus switches from the gloves he regularly wears to a thin pair of dish gloves that he’s taken to wearing in the kitchen. Kravitz hands him a couple peppers and he sets to work on chopping.
“You hold your arms around your middle when you start getting nervous,” he starts with, and Angus almost wishes he was taking notes. “Or you’ll grab at your stomach.”
“Mm,” Angus hums, setting aside the first pepper and starting on the other.
“You also rub your hands together, or rub over your fingernails. If you get really panicky you’ll hunch up or stop talking. Sometimes you’ll stop moving and sit very still for as long as it takes for someone to realize and nudge you out of it.”
That’s a lot. It’s more than he’d expected. He knew about the stomach thing, guarding the soft fleshy parts of himself from anything that could hurt him, but he didn’t know about the hands and the fingernails. He purses his lips and keeps cutting up the peppers, a little harsher than he needs to be.
“That’s all I can think of right now. And I’m fairly certain that’s it.” Kravitz pauses to look at him before he resumes cutting the onions again. “What exact do you need to do with that?”
“I don’t know,” he mutters. “I guess I do the action and tell her to nudge—,” he gets interrupted by a nudge on the leg from Basil, her recognizing the command, “and she’ll do that until I stop. There’s like, clickers and treats involved so she equates nudging with the reward.”
He gets another nudge and a quiet woof so he pulls off the right glove and gives her a pet. The peppers are mostly done anyway.
“I still don’t understand why you don’t want Taako to know. And why you went to me of all the people in this house to keep it a secret from him.”
“Lup would tell him on the basis that him and I are closer than her and me, and Barry would tell him over coffee one morning during their weird dirt bonding sessions. He wouldn’t even mean it in a bad way, it would just happen. You keep secrets for a living and I know you don’t tell him everything that happens in your life. And… I don’t know. Telling Taako makes my everything feel wrong, like I’ve put too much of this on him already and he’d get uncomfortable with it and feel guilty all over again.”
That was a lot of words about his thoughts and feelings right now and a lump forms in his throat, effectively silencing him. Kravitz turns and stares at him.
“You’ve got us all figured out pretty good, haven’t you?”
He gives him a shaky smile and shrugs his shoulders. Kravitz gives him one last look and then picks up the cutting board, sliding the vegetables into a frying pan.
“Regardless, he’ll figure out you asked someone once he notices Basil pulling you out of it. And he’ll wonder why it wasn’t him.”
“What, like I can’t have a good relationship with anyone but him?” He snaps, suddenly annoyed at all the pressure Kravitz is putting on this.
“Nobody but you said that. And you’ve gone to him for most of this, it would only make sense to him and all of the rest of us that you’d ask him this as well.” Kravitz’s voice stays level, still kind, and Angus feels immediately bad for snapping. “It’s not like I mind helping you, because I really don’t. I like that you think you can come to me with this stuff, and I’m glad that you have all of us figured out so well that you can narrow down the best person to help. I’m just saying he’ll probably be a little jealous and upset in the end.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles, switching out his gloves again, lowering a hand down to scratch at Basil’s ears.
“Don’t be. You’re allowed to get mad about things, you know. You don’t have to be quiet and smiles all the time.”
“It was a stupid thing to get mad about.”
“Your emotions aren’t stupid.” Kravitz sets the wooden spoon he’s stirring the peppers and onions with down across the top of the pan and turns to him, resting back on the counter with his arms crossed. “And even if it seems that way, it isn’t. You’re still getting back into the swing of things, even if you want to ignore it and try and act like everything can go back to normal. Stuff like that does funny things to the brain, Angus. You’ve got to realize that you’re not gonna have perfect control of your emotions all the time, not to mention you’re still growing. It’ll take a little while to get back to what you’re used to with emotions, and it might not happen all the way.”
He feels that same rush of annoyance and Kravitz quirks an eyebrow at him. “Take it from someone with experience. It’ll take a little bit.
Angus sighs and wraps his arms around his middle, then pulls them back because it’s an anxious tick and he shouldn’t, but that feels even more uncomfortable than the fact that he’s just had all of his tells put out in the open so he wraps them back around firmer.
The front door opens and Taako walks in, bags in hand. “Smells like onions! You two get started on cooking?”
Angus flips the notebook closed and tucks it under his arm while Kravitz answers with an affirmative.
“Everything all good?” Taako dumps the bags on the counter, puling out some noodles and chicken.
“Yes,” Angus says. “Just helping chop things up.”
“You’re a terrible liar, kiddo,” Taako says as he pulls out another pan and starts rubbing the chicken up with spices. “Don’t gotta tell me if you don’t want to, though.”
Angus hums and walk out of the kitchen, Basil following behind him. He shuts the door of his room and flops face first onto the bed. Basil nudges at his feet and he rolls over, allowing her room to jump up next to him.
“This sucks,” he tells her. She doesn’t say anything back, but she does lay down right next to him and push her face right up next to his.
“Mmmf,” he groans, rolling back onto his stomach. “I hate this. I hate feeling like this. Like- like I’ve gotta deal with everything really quickly or everyone will get tired of it and start to get actually upset instead of stupid pitying.”
She gives him a “boof” like noise as her sympathetic answer. He lays like that, quietly, until dinner gets called, and then he eats his dinner quietly. He’s not unable to, he’s just not really in the mood for talking tonight. Besides, he should probably think about how he’s going to train Basil without letting anyone other than Kravitz know about it. Probably his room, but keeping her cooped up there the whole time doesn’t sound like fun.
He starts that next day, pulling out the treat bag Magnus had given him and setting it on his bed. She watches him carefully from the floor. After a second of thought he wraps his arms around his middle. “Nudge.”
She does, and he hands her a treat. He does it again, and again she gets the treat.
They continue like this for a while. He goes one tick at a time, slowly teaching her his tells over days until she nudges and paws at him without a verbal prompt.
He stops giving treats gradually, giving pets and affection instead. Basil’s been trained like this before. She knows what he’s doing and she learns fast, nudging him unprompted one day when he sits with his arms around his middle, just for comfort. Angus looks at her, surprised, before leaning down and giving her lots and lots of pets.
“Kravitz?” He asks one night as everyone’s getting ready for bed. Lup and Barry are getting changed in their room and Taako is doing his face routine in the bathroom, so everyone is occupied.
“Hmm?”
He wrings his hands together and Bail gives him a comforting nudge until he stops. “I know I sometimes can’t talk all the way and writing things down helps, but I don’t know how I’d get Basil to be able to go get a notebook if I can’t talk.”
Kravitz looks at him thoughtfully, clearly trying to think through an answer.
“That… is a difficulty. She responds to cues, right? Not just words?”
“Yes.”
“You could make a cue for her, or a specific noise. It doesn’t have to be words. You could, hmm, you could click your tongue and have that mean notebook instead of the word.”
He’d never thought of that, having a non-vocal noise as a cue. It makes perfect sense and he brightens up a bit. Kravitz gives him a soft smile and then leans over and pats him on the shoulder.
“Start that tomorrow, though. Right now we’re all going to bed and you should too.”
Reluctantly, he does wait. Taako’s making a brief trip up to the school the next day which gives him the perfect slot to start training her that. Magnus said that to get her to go and grab things for him to start out kind of like fetch and go from there.
He waves the notebook in the air over her, clicks his tongue, and then throws it. She bounds over to where it lands and brings it back to him. He does it again, alternating with pets and treats to keep her attention on what she’s doing good.
She fetches things easily. It’s getting her to find them and bring them to him without him throwing it first that’s the hard part. He’ll have to have a set spot for it, then. He can bring a notebook with him in his bag and not have a problem, but when he’s a little indisposed and in his house or at the dorm, then he’ll need to have it be in a set place so she knows where to find it.
Basil picks it up eventually. It takes almost a week for her to be able to find it quickly in the house. Taako eyes her running across the house with a notebook in her mouth with an odd look that Angus isn’t sure how to place.
They’re eating dinner one night, a pasta dish, and the garlic smell makes him a little nauseous. That coupled with the clanking of silverware against plates sets him on edge. He doesn’t realize he has his arms wrapped around his stomach, fingers digging into his sides, until Basil nudges at his knee under the table. Even that seems a little fuzzy, and she does it harder, more insistent, until he snaps back into himself. He loosens his arms and looks down at her, petting around her ears.
When he looks up Taako is looking at him with one raised eyebrow, still taking bites of his food. Angus averts his gaze, taking another bite of food no matter how much his body wants to reject it. Barry and Kravitz are talking over a recent case with the occasional interjection from Lup. Angus can feel Taako’s eyes on him, boring holes in his head. He sets the fork down and stares right back at him.
“What?” He asks, maybe a little too loud, and Kravitz stumbles to a halt mid sentence. Taako raises his other brow to match the first and leans back in his seat.
“Got something you wanna share little man?”
Angus sees Kravitz steeple his fingers together above his nose and close his eyes. He bristles furrowing his brows and sitting up straighter.
“No, I don’t. Is that an issue?”
He watches the surprise pop onto Taako’s face before he schools it back to neutral. A slow smile spreads on his face. “Do you think I’m blind, pumpkin? I know you’ve been training Basil, and I know Kravitz has been helping you do it. Come on. It’s not like she’s gonna learn how to pull you out of a panic attack right off the bat with no assistance.”
“Stop it,” Angus says, squeezing his hands into fists. Basil whines at his legs but he ignores her. “Stop acting like you know everything.”
“Oh I know everything? Is that why you definitely told me all about your super happy training time?”
“Taako…” Kravitz mutters, reopening his eyes. “Maybe this isn’t the best—”
“Hush, skelator, I’ve got a point to make.”
“Are you saying I think I know everything? Why would I even ask Kravitz for help if I knew already! I wouldn’t ask anyone if I already knew all the stupid stuff I do when my head feels messy. I don’t want any of you to have to help me anymore because it’s almost been two months and eventually you’re going to get tired of it because I’m tired of it. And I can’t ask you because you’ll get all weird and guilty again and I don’t want you to have to deal with me!”
He’s so angry that he’s a little bit crying at this point, voice breaking and cracking with almost every word. His emotions are blurring together and he doesn’t know what exactly he’s feeling, just that it’s a lot.
“Ango.”
“What?” It would be a shriek but his voice fizzles out at the end, leaving him with a hoarse, breathy noise.
“I was fucking with you,” Taako says, face slack with shock. The entire table is staring at him and Basil is whining again, pawing at his legs. He unfists his hands and drops one down for her to rub against.
“What?” He says it quieter this time.
“I- do you think I give a shit whether you go to me or Krav or whoever the fuck you want for this? Like, sure, maybe I’m a little jealous that you didn’t even tell me you needed some help with what your anxiety shit is for training Basil, but gods kid you can talk to whoever you want. We’re family, that’s how it works.”
Angus shakily buries his face in his hands, shoving his glasses into his skin. He apologizes into his gloved hands, trying not to cry at the dinner table. A cool hand settles on his shoulder and he fights down a flinch, looking up cautiously. Kravitz leans down next to him, hand loose on his shoulder. He rests on the balls of his feet.
“Hey,” Kravitz says quietly. Angus doesn’t say anything, keeps his hands over his mouth and nose. “Do you want to go outside with Basil and calm down for a second? I wanna talk with Taako and I think you might need a bit of a breather.”
He nods, blinking a few times to clear his eyes. Kravitz gives him a grim smile and squeezes his shoulder, standing back up. Angus pushes himself back from the table, Basil standing at attention. Taako seems to be at a loss for words, along with Barry and Lup. He shuffles his way out to the back porch, curling up on the swing chair with Basil at his feet. The cool air blows over him and he buries his head in his arms, knees drawn up.
He tries not to think, but it’s a little hard with everything that just happened. Taako was messing with him. He does that. He does that a lot. Angus can usually see right through it, or if he can’t Taako’s quick to make sure he knows. He couldn’t tell, and that’s a problem. And now he’s messed it all up by yelling.
He loses himself a bit, swaying with the wind on the swing. The door creaks open some time later but he’s not really paying attention. A figure walks into his line of sight and he moves his eyes to find Kravitz, just Kravitz.
“Taako’s inside,” he says, reading Angus well. “I figured we could talk beforehand, just to make sure you’re up to talk with him. If you aren’t it’s fine.”
Angus shrugs and motions to the empty seat on the swing next to him. Kravitz takes it, reaching down and petting Basil as he does.
“There was a lot more to not telling Taako than you let on,” he says. Angus averts his gaze. “We don’t see you as a burden, Angus. I hope you know that.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean dealing with me isn’t difficult.”
“Again, we’re not dealing with you.” Kravitz pauses, seems to think over his words. “You appreciate honesty more than anyone in this household and you deserve to get it, so I won’t lie to you. Sometimes, it does get difficult. Not dealing with you, because we’re never just ‘dealing’ with you. But handling… all of this. Whatever this is. Parenting? Maybe? I’m not really sure I’m fit to be a parent, but guardianship I think I can do. Being a guardian, someone that takes care of you, can get difficult because there are so many things we have to look out for and take into consideration.”
Angus sneaks a look at him and his face is soft, eyes gentle.
“Especially now, after everything that you’re still healing from and we, as reluctant as anyone is to admit it, are still healing from, it’s hard to gauge what the right way to handle things is. I think Lup and Barry are trying to keep things as normal as possible, which you appreciate, and Taako’s trying to do that too but it’s not really working out so great, right?”
Angus shakes his head in agreement and Kravitz nods.
“That’s what I thought. All of us are different, you especially. I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s just a fact. Some things that the two of you are used to doing might not work as great. Taako fucking with you to try and joke around and make things better doesn’t really seem to work the way it used to. I… I’m not really sure what to do either, if I’m going to be completely honest. I feel like keeping things from each other isn’t the way to do it, but we all respect your privacy and don’t want to take that away. I probably should have told Taako, he probably should have told you he already knew and that it was fine, and everyone in this house should probably make sure that you know that you’re never burden on us and that we’ve never, ever, just been dealing with you.”
Kravitz puts a tentative arm around Angus’s shoulder and he leans into it, burying the side of his face into his shirt. The arm tightens.
“So yes,” he says a bit quieter now. Angus can feel the vibrations of him talking against his cheek. “It is a little difficult, and that’s because we’re dealing with a whole new thing that none of us have dealt with before. You are not difficult. The hurt you’re carrying is not difficult. The situation is. All we have to do is figure out what’s changing and what has changed, and that process is going to be ongoing. This isn’t a burden, this is us taking care of you, and we’ve chosen to do that. We’ll never take that back, Angus. No matter how messy and upsetting and scary this gets, we’ll be right here with you to make sure you’re alright.”
Kravitz is sounding a little watery, and Angus is definitely crying into his shirt, arms wrapped tight around his middle. Basil pulls her way precariously onto the swing chair as well, laying down across Angus’s lap. He drops a hand down to pet her, pulling her closer.
The back door creaks open but Angus doesn’t look up to see who it is. He can assume. It’s been a while and Taako’s probably gotten antsy.
“Pretty good spiel you got going there, bones,” Taako say, and Angus can hear how tentative he’s being. “Mind if I join?”
Kravitz looks down at Angus, a silent question, and he nods as a response. Taako must see this because before either of them have a chance to say something Taako’s walking over and sitting down in front of them on the deck.
It’s a quiet and tense few moments before Taako seems to deflate, scrubbing at his face. He sighs heavily and leans on one hand.
“Listen,” he starts, and then winces, pressing a hand over his mouth and scrubbing at it before speaking again. “We all know I’m not the best at like, emotions and shit. I’m pretty sure I’m liable to fuck up any and all emotional situations I get put in.”
He fidgets a little, jumping his leg, and it’s rare for Angus to see Taako this uncomfortable. “But that doesn’t really make messing with you and trying to ignore everything better. I’m pretty sure you want everything all tied up in a neat little bow and back to normal more than I do. And it’s never really gonna be? So we- I’ve got to get used to that and stop being an asshole to try and make things better.”
Angus opens his mouth to say something and Taako puts a hand up to stop him, waggling the fingers a bit. “I’m saying sorry, bubeleh. You don’t gotta accept it, but it’s out there.”
“I should have told you,” Angus says before he can get cut off again. “I shouldn’t have tried to keep it a secret.”
“That’s- Ango that’s not even a thing. You don’t have to tell any of us shit. I should’ve told you I already knew. I really don’t care that you told Krav instead of me. Like, that’s fine. You can do that.”
“We were both wrong,” Angus says, because he’s not going to accept it any other way.
“Agnes…”
“We were both wrong,” he says again, a little more forceful. “Just because I’m all trauma-ey now doesn’t mean I can’t be wrong.”
Taako snorts and he feels Kravitz try to disguise his laugh at a cough. “I guess not. Fine pumpkin, if you want both of us to have been wrong that’s fine. More work for the future, I guess.”
He reaches a hand out and Taako takes it in his, just like he’d hoped.
“We okay then, little man?”
“We’re okay,” Angus says. He means it. He hates being upset with people. It’s exhausting and taxing and he’d much rather make up and be over it.
“Alright,” Taako seems to untense. “Also, two months? You’re fine to still be messed up about this shit. You’re fine to be messed up about it for the rest of your life, actually. Stop putting time limits on your emotions.”
Angus scrunches his face up and Taako scrunches his right back. Angus huffs a sigh and nods, leaning heavier onto Kravitz. He feels completely drained, head fuzzing up a bit. Taako makes an amused noise.
“Looking sleepy there, Ango.”
“Mhm,” he says, blinking his eyes slowly. “Just a little, though.”
“Oh, just a little. I see. If you’re only a little bit tired then you’d deffo say no to some hot chai, right?”
“I am very very tired,” Angus corrects in a deadpan voice.
Taako laughs and nods. “Gotcha. You go get ready for bed and I’ll make you a mug, sound good?”
Angus nods and sits up, stretching out. Basil hops back down to the wood floor of the deck, tail wagging as she waits for what he’ll do next.
He brushes his teeth and washes his face before changing into pajamas. He switches out Basil’s water for the night and puts some of his things away before going back out to meet Taako in the Kitchen. Everyone else is still up, and they’ll probably stay up for a few more hours at least, but Angus is barely staying awake as is.
“Here we go,” Taako says as he hands Angus his mug. Warm sugary spice fills his mouth as he takes a drink. He closes his eyes and breathes in as he swallows, feeling ten times for tired after just that.
“Go rest up, Mango,” Taako says gently. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“G’night,” he calls sleepily as he shuffled back to his room, sipping on the chai as he shuts his light of and lays down.
Angus does a lot of thinking over the next week or so. He’s getting better at handling things, or Basil’s getting better at helping him handle things. She’s easy to focus on, easy to hold close and take a breath before continuing.
He has something that he wants to do before he goes back to school, which should be soon. He’s already talking with Lucas about when he’d be able to start back up. The general consensus is in about a month, which Angus thinks is too long but both Lucas and his family agree on.
The thing he wants to do is something he should probably do alone because no one will take him to do it, but that he really doesn’t want to do alone. Basil would be there with him, but the idea of riding the train back afterwards is daunting in the worst kind of way.
“I have a favor to ask,” he says to Kravitz on his off day.
“It’ll depend on the favor,” Kravitz says easily. He’s half reading a book and half paying attention to him.
“I want to go back,” Angus says, wrapping his arms loosely around his middle.
“Go back where?” Kravitz asks, putting the book down.
“To the house. To his house.”
It takes him a second to catch up to what he’s talking about, and Angus can see the moment he does as his face hardens. “No.”
“Why?”
“It’s a bad idea. You don’t want to go back there.”
“But you see, the thing is that I do? Not for any kind of extended amount of time, I just want to see it.”
“Angus—”
“I’ll just go myself on the train if you don’t say yes. This is a thing that I’m doing and need to do before I go back to school.”
“Then why are you asking me?” He sounds strained.
“Because I don’t want to be there alone.”
“Gods,” Kravitz says, wiping a hand down his face. “I can’t keep this a secret for you, Angus. That’s not something I can do.”
“I’m not asking you to. You can tell the others, just not until after. Then I don’t care.”
“When are you wanting—”
“Today?”
Kravitz gives him a longsuffering look and Angus tries to plead his case. “I just know your schedule can get kind of weird sometimes and it isn’t always set and you’re always on call, so I figured I’d ask now when I know you’re home instead of for a different day that I won’t know.”
“Are you sure you want to?”
“I… not really? But it feels like I need to, for me. Just to know.”
Kravitz wavers and Angus almost hopes he’ll say no just so that he won’t have to. But he nods slowly and Angus breathes out slowly. “If you start getting really badly anxious we leave, okay?”
“Deal,” Angus says, and Basil woofs in response as well.
Kravitz stands, summoning his scythe, and Angus figure there’s no time like the present. The rift opens up and Angus steps through quickly, Basil close at his side, wary of the sensation of muted death around them.
When they’re through, he looks around. He’s been on this street countless times exploring the town by his school. All the houses here look familiar. One on the corner stands out, police tape covering the property. Kravitz settles next to him.
He’s seen that house a million times, passed by it unthinkingly on his walks. His mouth dries up and he wraps his arms around his stomach, loose enough that Basil doesn’t nudge.
“If I don’t talk the rest of the day after, is that okay?” His voice is hoarse, dry.
“We don’t have to do this, Angus. We can go back home.”
“Is it okay?” he asks again, eyes not leaving the house.
“Of course. That’s always okay.”
Angus takes a shaky step forward, and then another, and another until he’s at the door, hand pausing. He twists it open, surprised to find it unlocked still. The lights are off and there’s not much in the way of things inside. Basil and Kravitz stay close by him.
He walks back into the bedroom, having gotten the details of where he was from the police when he’d talked to them that first week. The closet door stares at him menacingly in all it’s plain glory. He hesitates, not quite sure if he’s ready to open it. Kravitz repeats himself that they can go home now and leave it be, and that pushes him into opening it.
Still, just a closet, save for the door in the back of the wall. Before he can psych himself out again he yanks it open, squeezing his eyes closed for a brief moment.
There’s police tape in here at well, numbers written in chalk by things. He walks in and leans on the wall, surveying. There’s still not much, just that chair, the bucket gone to some different place.
He stands there and stares at it for a while, Kravitz quiet next to him. He’s not sure what he should do here other than look. He crosses his arms and looks around.
It isn’t much, but there is a pull of anxiety that grows larger and larger as he stands there, trying to seem as aloof and disinterested as he possibly can. He’s pretty sure this isn’t what closure feels like, but he has nothing to go on. Everything feels overwhelming, but in a middle kind of way. Not all of it is bad. He feels a little bit of power over it. He can leave when he wants, the door is open on his left, there’s no one here to hurt him and he knows it.
A hand touches his shoulder and he jumps, batting away at it with his hands. Kravitz puts his hands up in plain view, eyebrows furrowed.
“Do you want to go back home?”
Angus nods, not trusting himself to be able to speak right now. Kravitz makes the rift in the middle of the room and leads them all through it back into their living room. Angus collapses onto the couch, pressing his face into the cushions as Basil hops up next to him.
“Are you alright?”
He doesn’t answer, pulling his arms in tight.
“Can I touch you?”
He gives him a thumbs up in response and feels a gentle lukewarm hand rub over his shoulders and his hair.
“Do you feel like that accomplished what you wanted it to?”
He gives a so so hand motion, face still pressed into the couch cushions. He’s glad Kravitz told him it was fine to go nonverbal because he’d probably have a panic attack if he tried to talk right now.
“Do you want me to grab your notebook for you?”
He clicks his tongue and feels Basil go running off to find it. She comes back with it between her teeth a minute or so later, presenting it proudly. Angus sits up and takes it.
“I’m glad I went but I’m sorry I made you take me.”
“I’m glad I went too,” Kravitz says. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable with you going by yourself.”
“Seeing and being there was bad, but… I don’t know. It felt more real that it’s over now? But also not. I don’t know. Should I?”
“You don’t have to. I’m honestly not sure that going was the best thing for your health if this is what we’re basing off.”
“I’m sorry. If I talk right now I don’t think it would be good.”
“You don’t have to apologize. It’s fine if you don’t talk. I don’t want you to push yourself too hard too fast, especially right now.” He scrubs a hand down his face and looks at him. “I’m just glad you’re this okay about it.”
He feels a familiar lump in his throat and almost gets annoyed at it. “Sorry. I think I’m about to cry? It’s not all bad, just like half of it. But, just a warning I guess.”
Kravitz looks a little surprised. “Alright. Do, um, do you want me to stay or—”
Angus nods and sits up. Kravitz offers his side to him, arm out, and he accepts gladly, pressing his face into what counts as casual clothes for Kravitz. And he cries. And it’s a little overwhelming how much he does. Basil nudges at him and licks his face and tries to keep his attention and he maybe starts sobbing a little hysterically.
Kravitz pulls him closer and rubs circles in his back with his thumb. He cries for a few minutes, letting all the hurt out and trying not to choke on air. It takes a while for him to calm down, scrubbing at his face when he’s done. It feels blotchy and damp and his eyes feel a little raw.
“Feeling better?”
He nods, because he does feel a little better.
“Still not up for talking?”
He tries to say something, just to test, and his lungs lock up. He shakes his head no vigorously. Kravitz nods like he already knew that.
“I’m going to get you some water.” He gets up and Angus watches him walk into the kitchen and fill a cup with some ice and then water. He comes back and hands it to him. It feels good on his dry throat, and he drinks about half the glass before setting it down. He turns his attention to Basil, whining sadly at his legs. Petting her calms her down a bit, and so does giving her a gentle hug. She licks at his face to remove and residual tears and he lets out a quiet, watery laugh.
“Angus,” Kravitz says slowly, and he turns his attention back to him. “Don’t… don’t feel like you have to do something or go somewhere just to get closure. You don’t have to push yourself to go back to places that make you feel uncomfortable. I hope you know that.”
He nods and grabs the notebook. “I know. But this felt important. It might not have worked out as good and clean as I wanted, but I’m still glad I did it.”
Kravitz lets out a puff of unneeded air and nods. “Alright. I’m glad you know. Just use some caution in the future when making these decisions, alright?”
Angus nods again and settles back into the couch, petting Basil absentmindedly. He’ll probably have to talk about this more, definitely with Taako later, but for now he’s content to rest in the easy silence that sits in the room. He breathes out slowly and closes his eyes. He’s home, he has his dog, he has his family. He’s going back to school in a month and things are going good, for the most part. He’s doing good, and that’s a comforting thought.
Angus drifts halfway asleep and lets himself hope for even better things to come.