Chapter Text
It was summer and Taako had everything planned out for the whole thing to go perfectly. Of course, the plan was pretty simple. Over-complicated plans were bound to fail after all, so he was keeping his shit clean cut.
He was going to spend the precious three months out of college sleeping in as late as possible, chilling with his friends and sister, and spending as much time as possible making out with his hot as fuck, ridiculously sweet boyfriend. Bing bang boom, simple as anything. A guaranteed recipe for a good time as far as Taako was concerned, and his concern was the only one that mattered.
There was only one real hitch in his plan so far, and that was the fact that other than himself and Kravitz, who happened to be said sweet, hot boyfriend, no one knew he was actually, ya know, dating anyone. He also had no plans on letting anyone else in on that fact anytime soon.
It was definitely weird, keeping something like this from everyone, especially from Lup of all people. Under any other circumstance that would raise about a million red flags for Taako, no matter how smitten he might be.
The thing was, it wasn’t like it was Kravitz’s idea to keep shit a secret. It hadn’t even been his idea to date. Taako had been the driving force behind both of those decisions.
They’d been dating for kinda a while now, a surprisingly long time without anyone else finding out if he was being honest. Of course, they had the help of finals and everything keeping everyone distracted for a good chunk of time there. That had also done the unfortunate job of keeping the two of them pretty busy as well, so they could only meet up here and there every so often. Not anywhere near often enough for Taako's liking.
Taako had met Kravitz about a year ago, in a complete fucking shit show. He couldn’t remember a lot of the details, it might have been Candlenights and he might have drank a few too many eggnog. He spent most of the time hiding out eating a sandwich. The facts he did know was that there had been a pretty nasty fight, someone might have gotten shoved and that someone had definitely been Merle down some stairs, breaking the dude’s arm.
Ever since then, Magnus had had a grudge against Kravitz (Merle less so, but Merle might not even remember the specifics of what happened that night either), and all Taako could really remember of the dude was that he was hot and his friends weren’t fans, so he hadn’t thought much of it after that. The next time he’d heard about the dude was from Barry of all people, and well, it was not exactly glowing reviews there either. You had to be pretty fucking bad to piss off Barry too, and Taako had officially put Kravitz on his ‘assholes, do not interact’ list.
And that had been it for a while. He’d see the dude around campus, but for the most part avoided him. Sometimes he’d hear Barry complaining about him on topics Taako nodded along with but did not even begin to comprehend. It was pretty set, Kravitz was a dick, a real fucking pretty one, but he wasn’t gonna broach that with anyone, especially not with his friends, who seemed to hate the guy’s guts.
And then Taako got stuck in a ceramics class.
There weren’t a lot of classes available to him for the semester, at least not ones that he needed. And of course, he couldn’t take the other classes he needed without their pre-recs. So he was left with a good couple of credits he needed to fill to keep a full time student status for his financial aid and shit. So, he took ceramics. It seemed like it would be fun, he got to use his hands kinda like he was cooking with really thick, really cold dough, and because of the length of the class it was a lot of credits. It seemed like a pretty good deal.
The only issue was that Kravitz was also in that class. Taako had no idea why, but he figured he could just try and go the whole class without talking to him or something. Taako was good at avoiding people, he’d avoided people for a lot longer than a semester, it should have been no problem.
The first three weeks he managed to avoid talking to the guy pretty well. They sat at different tables as they worked, and Kravitz seemed as on board with ignoring his existences as Taako was to ignore him. Shit was fine.
Then the teacher started them on throwing, and assigned them seats at the wheels.
Of course, Taako found himself sat right fucking next to Kravitz.
He managed two more classes before they actually started talking. Taako figured he could have gone longer, but everything he’d built up about the guy being some huge pretentious dick began to fall away as he watched him up close.
The dude could not figure out throwing to save his life, the balls of clay falling apart between his fingers in wet, sloppy messes.
Taako watched his struggle in amusement for two days before finally starting to feel bad. He on the other hand was picking it up pretty well. He’d even caught Kravitz glancing over at his work every now and then, looking like he was trying to mimic his movements and failing spectacularly.
It was as cute as it was hilarious, and Taako really did try and pretend it wasn’t either of those things for a while.
Eventually Taako had decided that it was too pathetic for him to keep watching, and they started talking a bit after that. Taako did not mention it to Lup or Barry, because the two had just started an internship that Kravitz was also in. They had both been pretty loudly displeased with the whole deal, although Taako was starting to have a hard time understanding why.
Like, Kravitz was an asshole, but every single one of Taako’s friends was an asshole. More so, Kravitz was a fucking hilarious asshole, which Taako had learned over a semester of laughing way too loud in a generally pretty chill arts class.
And like, he was sweet. The class was over three hours long, and so they had a break to go grab food in the middle. After a bit they somehow started getting their lunches together. The arts building was way in the back of campus, but there was a little portable that was used as a market where they could grab sandwiches and shit close by, with tables outside.
He was surprisingly easy to talk to, and a huge fucking goober. At one point he managed to get one of the birds that hung around trying to mooch food off of students into his lap, where it had fallen asleep. Taako had to run back to let the teacher know they’d be late coming back, because Kravitz refused to move until the bird woke up.
Taako had no fucking idea why his family hated him, and before he didn’t care. As the semester was coming to a close though, he was starting to recognize it was a problem, because he liked Kravitz. A lot.
So on the last day of class, as they were cleaning up their lockers and trying to figure out how to transport all their creations, Taako decided to just ask him.
“You know, for the life of me I cannot understand what my family’s problem is with you. Like, not gonna lie my dude, I thought you were a huge fucking dickwad from everything I’ve heard. What’s the deal with that?” he asked. Kravitz looked up from where he was contemplating what to do with a few failed wheel pieces that had never ended up getting fired. He had smudges of white clay dust across his face, and Taako had to resist the urge to reach over and wipe them off. Kravitz winced at the question, sucking in a breath.
“I mean, I always thought it had to be the whole, you know, arm incident,” he said, and Taako wasn’t surprised by that. That one was pretty clear cut.
“Yeah, and that explains some of it, but what the fuck did you do to piss off Barold?” Taako pressed, and this time a flash of annoyance passed over Kravitz's face, which hadn’t been what he was expecting.
“Right, Barry. I always forget you’re friends with him,” he said, and Taako nodded.
“Dude’s basically my brother. We’ve known each other forever, him and Lup got engaged a few months ago too. So it’ll be like, official soon enough,” Taako explained, and there was definitely some surprise on Kravitz’s face at that. No annoyance or bad will though, which Taako had been trying to pay a hell of a lot of attention to during that conversation.
“Oh wow, congratulations,” he said, and it sounded genuine enough. Then he really seemed to think the question over, before sighing. “It’s not- I have nothing personal against him, I’m sure he’s fine. It’s, uh, an academic difference? Some scientific disagreements, can’t say I’m a huge fan of some of his theories is all,” Kravitz tried to explain.
From what Taako had heard from Barry, it made sense. It didn’t seem like he was trying to cover anything up either, more than he just could tell Taako wasn’t all that interested in the play by play of their heated nerd debates.
“Well, I’m glad you decided to give me a chance despite your family’s uh, pretty reasonable misgivings. It’s been- I’ve had a lovely time,” Kravitz added. Taako had realized he’d gotten pretty distracted from cleaning his locker by that point, shoving the rest of the junk in his bucket and figuring he’d deal with it later.
“I mean, no reason to sound like we ain’t ever gonna see each other again,” Taako said, not meeting Kravitz’s eyes. “Like, unless you’re packing your bags and moving away, which can’t blame you for that either,” he added. When Taako chanced looking over at him he could see the surprise on Kravitz’s face as he quickly shook his head.
“No, that’s not- I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
“Cool, hand over your phone then. We can grab lunch sometime that isn’t overpriced individually packed sandwiches,” Taako said, even though he knew at the moment it was a bad idea. If anyone found out about this they’d have Taako’s head.
The delighted smile that stretched across Kravitz’s face as he handed over his phone definitely felt worth it though.
That had been the end of last semester, and with another one under their belts Taako still couldn’t say it wasn’t worth it yet. Even insisting to Kravitz that they couldn’t let any of his friends know, it had been great. Taako had dated plenty of dudes before, and he couldn’t say he’d ever just been this happy in a relationship, or having this much fun, even when they couldn’t see each other.
Which unfortunately, happened to be a hell of a lot of the time. They didn’t have a class together this semester, which considering their majors yeah, the last one had been kind of a fluke. Taako couldn’t have Kravitz over whenever there was any chance of Lup or Barry coming home, or any of his other idiot friends. A lot of the times Lup and Barry were out overlapped with the times Kravitz was working in the internship with them, and then there were classes on top of that.
So yeah, Taako was not super thrilled about the fact that he finally had a boyfriend he like, fucking cared about. A lot. A relationship he was having fun with and a guy he actually felt like he could open up to, and no goddamn time to hang out together. It was complete bullshit.
That was over now though. It was summer, and neither of them were taking any classes over break, thank fuck. The internship was over too, which everyone seemed to be in a good mood about that. Sure, Taako figured he’d have to come up with some excuses as to why he was leaving the house a hell of a lot more this summer, but he could handle it.
So yeah, Taako was in a damn good mood. He’d fucking earned this break and he was planning on making every moment of it count.
Or at least, he had been.
“I know procrastinating is kinda your thing bro, but you gonna start even thinking of packing, or what?” Lup asked, standing in his doorway. Taako frowned in confusion, looking up from where he’d been texting Kravitz. They’d been planning on meeting up for lunch or something tomorrow since they were both finally free. Or well, Taako had thought he was free.
“Uh, for what? Who did you piss off and could we kill them instead of skipping town?” he asked. Lup snorted at that, rolling her eyes.
“No one, drama queen, we’re not skipping town,” she said. He kept staring at her, waiting for her to explain what the actual reason was then. Slowly the look of amusement on Lup’s face started to fade away. “Wait, did you seriously forget?” she asked, which only made Taako even more confused.
“Apparently, since I’ve got no goddamn clue what you’re talking about,” he said, not enjoying the incredulous look on his sister’s face at that.
“The trip?” she said, and Taako continued his blank stare as it failed to ring any bells. “The summer road trip? You know, the one we’ve all been planning for the past fucking two and a half months? Holy shit are you serious?” Lup said, and Taako was frantically wracking his brain to try and remember any of this.
Two and a half months, so right around when he and Krav started dating. He remembered Davenport getting a new RV, and he could vaguely remember talk about testing it out over the summer.
Lup asking if he was down to visit the Woven Gulch this summer, and his vague mumble of approval while watching a video Kravitz had sent him of his mom’s pet birds.
“Wait, y’all were serious?” he blurted out, Lup looking at him like he was crazy.
“Yes! Of course we were serious! What do you thing we’ve been doing?” she asked, and Taako threw his hands up.
“I don’t fucking know! I’ve been busy,” he insisted. Lup was giving him a look now, and Taako tried to hide his own guilty look that wanted to leak out. He could not let anyone find out about this. Sure if like, shit kept being as good as it was with Kravitz now he knew he’d have to tell them eventually, but he’d much rather do that on his own terms.
“Holy shit Ko, I know you’ve been distracted lately, but this is kinda one for the record books,” she said, and Taako huffed, leaning further back against his headboard and crossing his arms.
“When are we leaving?” he grumbled. He was trying to do the math in his head, how long it would take to get down to the Woven Gulch and back. Knowing their group, twice the length of time it would take any normal roadtrip, so at least a week either way. Plus however long they were planning on actually staying there.
“Saturday,” Lup said, and Taako’s eyes widened at that, pushing himself up.
“What the fuck!? How long are we gonna be gone?” he asked, because he needed something concrete instead of just his own vague guesses.
“Like two, two and a half weeks? It’ll take five or six days to get there, then we’re gonna stay for three or four, and then heading back. Davenport’s gonna try and keep us from getting too distracted along the way,” she said, and Taako groaned, flopping back down again.
He could not fucking believe this was happening.
“Don’t be like that bro, you got anything better to do?” Lup asked. It took every ounce of Taako’s self control not to respond with ‘yeah, my fucking boyfriend.' It would have almost been worth it.
“I’ll start packing,” he grumbled. Under normal circumstances he’d be looking forward to fucking off with his family, but he’d had a plan. He couldn’t even tell any of them why he was annoyed with this either, which made the whole thing worse for some reason.
“Alright Taako, and hey, cheer up. It’ll be fun,” Lup said, and it was obvious she was trying to genuinely lift his spirits. It felt wrong, not being able to tell his sister why he was upset about all of this.
He really fucking liked Kravitz, but he didn’t want his sister hating his boyfriend either.
“Yeah, sure,” he muttered instead. There was a short moment where Lup stood in his doorway, a conflicted look on her face. Whatever she was debating she must've decided against, turning and leaving, shutting the door behind her. That at least Taako was grateful for.
Even still, he waited a few moments before moving. Heading over to his window, he opened it as wide as it would go, swinging his legs over and sitting out on the ledge. Pulling up Kravitz’s number he called him. It only took a ring before he answered.
“Kraaaaav,” he whined into the phone. He could hear Kravitz chuckle on the other end of the line, which would have gotten a smile out of him if he wasn’t all upset.
“Yes Taako?” he asked, amusement clear in his voice.
“Krav,” Taako just insisted again. This was so stupid, he told himself it was only gonna be two weeks. A little more than two weeks. He could last that long.
He’d been so excited to hang out with his boyfriend though. He didn’t want to wait.
“Use your words dear,” Kravitz said, and Taako huffed, even though he knew he was right.
“I’m fucking leaving my dude,” he said, a clear pause of confusion on Kravitz’s end.
“What do you mean?” he asked, and Taako started swinging his legs slightly, slumping up against the window frame.
“Turns out my family planned a whole goddamn two and a half week road trip out to the Woven Gulch and we’re leaving on fucking Saturday,” Taako explained. He’d feel a little bad about dropping this on Kravitz with absolutely no forewarning, but it wasn’t like he’d had it much better.
“Wait, did they do this without telling you?” Kravitz asked. It was a fair question, considering Taako’s reaction.
“No… not exactly,” he muttered. He couldn’t see Kravitz right now but he could imagine the questioning look he was probably giving his phone. “They might’ve mentioned it before. I’d been kinda distracted,” he added.
“What could have possibly been that distracting?” Kravitz asked, a slightly incredulous tone to his voice. Taako huffed, glad no one could see the way his face was darkening in a blush.
“Well, you see there’s this guy I’ve been talking to lately. He’s kinda a dick, but I really like him,” Taako said.
“Oh… oh,” Kravitz said, and it was easy to pinpoint the moment when it clicked in his head. Taako couldn’t help but snort at that, a smile working its way onto his face despite his best efforts.
“You fucking dork,” Taako said, his voice more fond than he usually allowed.
“I really like you too Taako,” Kravitz responded, and he sounded so genuine. It was so fucking unfair. Taako threw his head back, groaning in frustration again.
“Ugh! This fucking sucks,” he snapped.
“How long are you going to be gone again?” Kravitz asked, and Taako stopped his loud complaining for fear of alerting Lup. The whole reason he was sitting out like this was to lessen the chance of her overhearing after all.
“Two and a half weeks, give or take,” he said, and he swore he could hear Kravitz thinking it over and doing the calculations in his head.
“I guess that’s not too bad…” he muttered, not sounding all that convinced.
“It’s the worst thing ever,” Taako insisted. He heard Kravitz snort on the other end of the line.
“Taako, it is not the worst thing ever. It’s not even three weeks,” he said, and Taako shook his head.
“The worst ever. It’s not fair, I’ve already been missing you and now I’m gonna have to wait even longer. We can’t even meet up tomorrow now because I’m gonna have to spend the whole day packing!” Taako said. Kravitz was quiet for a moment, and Taako was suddenly worried that maybe it was too much. He was saying too much too fast and it was going to weird Kravitz out and make him leave.
“You’ve been missing me?” Kravitz asked finally, an almost hopeful tone to his voice that took Taako off guard.
“Yeah, I mean… I got to see you more before we started dating than I do now. It’s stupid, I was looking forward to just, ya know, hanging out this summer,” he muttered. It was more than he was usually willing to open up to someone other than Lup, but Kravitz made this shit easy.
“I know, I was too,” Kravitz said, sighing softly on the other side. It was so dumb. Sure they’d have the rest of the summer once Taako got back, but he was having a hard time caring about that right now. Taako couldn’t even consider bailing on his family either though. The dumb, sensible part of him that loved their little makeshift family of outcasts knew he would regret doing that.
He just wished Kravitz could come too.
Hmm.
Well, there was an idea.
“What if we just… brought you along,” Taako suggested, a haphazard plan already starting to form in his head. It would be a risky gambit for sure, but if anyone could pull it off, it was Taako.
“I don’t think your family would appreciate that very much,” Kravitz said, but Taako shook his head, a smile starting to form on his face now.
“Yeah, yeah no, we still not broaching that subject. They don’t have to know you’re coming,” he said, and Taako was getting excited now. Sure, Kravitz could completely shoot the idea down, but he also wasn’t thrilled with not being able to see each other for another two, almost three weeks.
“I uh, I think they would notice. You said it’s a road trip, right? I’m not going to hide in your trunk Taako.”
“That’s what she said,” Taako responded automatically, pretty pleased with the sputtering he could hear coming from Kravitz.
“That’s not- how does that one even work?” he asked, and Taako shifted so that he was sitting curled up in the window now.
“Just think about it,” he said, sure his grin could be heard over the phone. He was pretty damn sure Kravitz was smiling too.
“You’re ridiculous,” he said, an obvious affection in his voice that made Taako’s heart do things.
“Anyway,” he said, jumping away from those emotions. Kravitz made it a lot easier to be open about junk yeah, but not that open yet. He didn’t want to scare him away, this was all still relatively new after all. “You should come.”
“That’s what she-” Kravitz started, but Taako cut in before he could finish.
“You can’t just say it right back! And that one’s too easy!” he argued, and he could hear Kravitz laughing. After a minute though he managed to bring himself back under control again.
“I still don’t know how you’re expecting me to tag along on a road trip without anyone else noticing,” he said. Which wasn’t an automatic no.
“Okay, like, Davenport got this new, super fucking tripped out RV. There’s like, a sectioned off room and a loft and shit! We could totally hide you,” Taako explained. He wasn’t saying it wouldn’t be difficult, but he was more willing to try if it meant getting to see Kravitz all the time.
“Taako… that’s a bad idea,” Kravitz said. It still wasn’t a no, and Taako had heard that hesitation.
“Babe, I don’t have bad ideas,” he said, which got a snort out of Kravitz.
“For two weeks though? That could end really badly,” Kravitz insisted. Taako knew he wasn’t wrong about that, but for some reason he was no less determined. They could make it work. He wanted to make this work.
What he wanted was for his family to not hate his boyfriend, but that would require first telling them all that he started dating a dude they all openly dislike behind their backs. That was a future him problem.
“We really shouldn’t,” Kravitz continued, not sounding as convinced as he should.
“I’m not hearing a no,” Taako said in a singsong voice, which got another laugh out of Kravitz. He really liked being able to make him laugh so much.
“Taako, I think Magnus would throw me out of a moving car if he found me hiding away with you,” Kravitz argued, still laughing somewhat.
“Coward,” Taako said. This should just be a joke, he shouldn’t actually be considering hiding his boyfriend away in an RV for two fucking weeks. He was very much considering it though, and he was really hoping Kravitz would agree to it.
“You’re the worst,” Kravitz said, no bite in his voice what so ever.
“You’re the one who decided to date me babe,” Taako countered.
“Yeah, I did,” Kravitz said, a fucking smittened tone to his voice and Taako could feel his face heating up. God, this was the worst. Being in l- dating. Dating was the worst.
“So um, you said something about a loft?” Kravitz asked after a moment, and Taako felt his smile start to spread back over his face once again.
“Sure did my guy, you interested in checking it out?” he asked, honestly shocked that Kravitz was starting to get on board for this plan. That was genuinely the last thing he expected. He couldn’t complain though.
“I think I might be, as long as you’re there too, of course,” he said, and Taako was full out grinning now.
“Well then, I guess we both better start packing then,” he said, and Kravitz snorted.
“Yes, I suppose so,” he said. There was a small beat, and then he started speaking again. “Hey Taako?” he asked.
“Mhmm?”
“This is a bad idea,” Kravitz repeated, and Taako nodded vigorously at that.
“Oh, the worst,” he agreed. They were still going to do it though.
Taako never tried to pretend he wasn’t a complete and utter dumbass after all.